The Shadows of Skegby Hall

The Shadows of Skegby Hall

Retracing steps from the past. Things change but everything fundamentally stays the same. Skegby Hall stands grand with it's black history. Now things of memory and infamous legend. Most of the sprawling grounds had been invaded by a faceless, but nevertheless, affluent housing estate. Even the grand old house of the Approve School Headmaster - Mr Lincoln had been razed to the ground and replaced by another substantial dwelling presumably free from the acidic, acerbic and nefarious ghosts of ill meant evils. The matchbox semi that cocooned my mother's depression had thankfully fallen to land development. The grounds that witnessed fights, football, cricket and things no one ever mentioned again were transformed into a woodland nature trail suitably peaceful for the souls that still lay there.
I walked part of my old paper round that was done singing Dexys; freewheeling my bike. Somehow I remembered how to find my junior school at the back of an old mining estate. Danewood School. I only went there for a matter of weeks. How small and insubstantial it seemed. I swear it had shrunk. I walked away, fearful of being branded a paedophile, singing 'Baggy Trousers' by Madness. That being my overriding memory of the place and being allowed to watch the McEnroe/Connors Wimbledon Semi-Final. We assumed the teachers were being nice. I wondered whether the small grey horse in the field next to the school was the same one that used to be there. I think it was grey. I'd forgotten that the field had existed, but the sight of it made me realise what we all take for granted.
I really wanted to find the coal shed of the terraced house I used to deliver the People's Friend and Daily Express to every day. The shed that was home to an owl that used to dive bomb me every morning at 6.30am, surely trying to dissuade me from delivering such right wing trash.
The clad houses on Stanton Hill still stuck out like office workers knocking off at Silverdale Colliery. The road was, always has been and always will be a dull, flat-lining grey of an image in my mind.  It still was on that wet, misty mid-winter day. The remnants of snow spluttering the pavements infused with a carbon monoxide hue. It was quite satisfying to know.
That desultory High School had not changed either, not one iota save from a new astro-turf and flashy school sign. The lego block classrooms still housed stickle brick brained teenagers with an eye on their lashes and MILFs on their minds. The smoker's safe zone was still sacrosanct and a fledging fumble were sharing a fag as I wandered past.

Off to the chip shop that served my school dinners for 3 years.