Stratford View column: Tales of wine glasses and egg throwing
By Becky Holmes
WHEN I was in my late teens, weekends looked very similar. Particularly Saturday nights. We would start off in the Cross Keys (back when there was a pool table, jukebox and shooting machine), go onto Chicago Rock Café (when that wasn’t a crumbling shell) and then head to the kebab shop next to NatWest (still there but no longer selling potato wedges). My friend and I would always finish the night eating chips in a phone box while watching the fights at the taxi rank.
Most of that is a distant memory. However, I have found that I can still go and watch people shouting at each other outside NatWest by going down there in daylight hours and standing at the bus stop.
Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I don’t believe drug and alcohol dependence is anything to be mocked. I am sympathetic to substance abuse for a number of reasons. However, what I am not sympathetic to is people splaying themselves all over the pavement like it’s the Jeremy Kyle waiting room.
The group of miscreants that congregate there are a puzzling bunch who seem to enjoy a variety of beverages. Aside from the expected cans of cheap lager and massive bottles of lethal-looking cider, I was amused one day to walk past while two, erm, gentlemen were sharing a bottle of red wine from wine glasses. As I walked past I smiled and said “very civilised” to which one of them replied “you gotta make the effort”. I rather enjoyed that brief exchange and felt some softness developing towards them.
However about three weeks later someone from the group lobbed a boiled egg in my direction and all goodwill vanished. Curiously the egg had been de-shelled so it either came from a pre-packed salad or the thrower had taken the time to boil an egg at home, peel it and take it into town with him. I’ll have to live without ever knowing which it was.
My own experiences aside, I regularly find myself wondering what tourists who arrive in Stratford by train must think. They alight the railway station excited to witness, first hand, the picture-perfect Shakesperian town. After they’ve crossed the road and made their way past the boarded-up wasteland on the corner (albeit covered up with beautiful artwork), they then head on down Greenhill Street which, let’s face it, has most certainly seen better days. After staring into takeaway shop windows and walking through clouds of vape smoke they arrive at NatWest where they are confronted by a scruffy mob screeching at one another. If I was a tourist I’d turn right around before I could say “much ado about nothing”.
I have regularly heard people talking about what they think should be done. The answers have ranged from suggestions around dedicated drug and alcohol support to rather less charitable, and certainly unprintable, ideas. My own solution is to dig a large suction tunnel between the train station and Henley Street so visitors get sucked into that and are immediately spat out outside Boston Tea Party to then take a pleasant walk past coffee shops and street performers. We then need to make sure that those who want to visit the RSC are funnelled via Sheep Street so they don’t find themselves wandering down Bridge Street by mistake.
Sadly, given that the powers that be won’t fill in the huge pothole outside my flat, I don’t think my suction tunnel idea will be given the green light.
