Monday 28 February 2011

Memories flow

One of my favourite memories from University is of a spontaneous trip to London to receive the gift of a free car. Naturally I have many other memories of drunken escapades, throwing flour around kitchens, sitting on roof tops drinking sweet Swedish cider, and organising, promoting and filming amateur boxing matches for no apparent reason. This incident however is one that lives in the memory and never fails to bring a smile to my face.


I thought about it again today at work, and decided it was about time to write it down, for sentiments sake. I remember the weather in Southampton, where I did my degree, being decidedly mild for what was winter at the time. I had been chatting to a good friend of mine who I knew through my various dealings in car owners clubs. (Anyone who knows me from back in the UK will know I was rather involved in collecting, restoring, and destroying cars in my younger years. The number of cars I’d owned or co-owned by the time I was 22 was the on the ridiculous side of 30. But I digress.)

So it was a mild late-winter's day. I`d been chatting to my buddy Marc, and now was on my way home from University. As I strolled down the damp street towards the T-Junction that led to the apartment I rented with two friends, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. It was a text from Marc. ”You want a free car mate?” it read. Me? Free car? What a ridiculous question. I responded. It turned out that Marc had been offered an old BMW by a friend, but was lacking the space for it, so he got in touch. Not one to turn down an opportunity like this I contacted the owner and said I’d get the train to London to his house the following morning. He`d get rid of the car. I`d have a new project. Perfect.


It must have been a Friday, or having said that, any day of the week (since we were students after all) – as my friends and I were drinking that night. I’m not a big drinker, especially not these days, but for some reason my final year at University was strewn with excessive amounts of liver abuse, and abundant instances of post-alcohol bed-ridden syndrome. I’d booked a train ticket to London for early the following morning. Maybe I was being too optimistic.

The new day dawned, and with it, my hangover. I tried to get out of bed, but realised after one step that this was a bad idea. I was forced to run to my trash can and filled it up with the previous night`s beverages. Not the best start, I thought. Contacting the owner of the car I explained myself and my current plight. I was met with uncontrollable laughter on the other end of the phone, and he agreed that it might be prudent to catch a later train, and see him in the afternoon. I went back to bed.




Later on in the day, about 11:30am, and considerably more pilled up on paracetamol than before, I made my way to Southampton Station, and caught the train to London Waterloo. I enjoyed the train ride immensely, as it gave me time to gather my thoughts, get over my hangover, and play with my new toy – a Nikon D50 digital SLR camera. It had been raining and dull for a few days previous, but today the sun had come out from behind the clouds, and the sunlight reflected off the puddles on the pavement, and beaded off buses, trains, and buildings. It made for a great first photography adventure.

I knew I was going to Hounslow, a borough of South West London, but that was all I knew. I`d never been there before. Entering our nation’s capital for the first time in a couple of years was an interesting experience. Being on my own that day meant I could appreciate the sites of the old city all the more, with no distractions. I was in awe of the sheer scale of the city, the Victorian-era smog-stained buildings running parallel to new, shiny developments, and the incredible convergence of railway tracks at Clapham Junction. I`d always come to London by rail from the north before, so coming from a southerly direction, and seeing all the sites from this angle was new and exciting. Everything was so big, developed, industrialised, but with that run-down, ramshackle charm. Here was England.


I arrived at Waterloo, and somehow navigated my way to the correct underground train to get me to Hounslow. I enjoyed getting on the old Tube network, and working out how to navigate the spaghetti-like maze that is the Tube map. The map has become legendary these days. It`s reproduced in all manner of ways for your enjoyment – on posters, T-Shirts, postcards. You name it – the tourist can buy it.

Arriving in Hounslow the train left the depths of the underground, and breached the surface. Again I was bathed in post-rainstorm light. It was a quiet afternoon when I stepped off the train. I remember being the only one on the platform. The feeling of being in such a huge city, but being the only one around was strangely comforting. I took a few more photos, and wormed my way through the terraced streets of the urban sprawl of London to the car owner`s house. I got the keys, filled in some paperwork, and drove back to Southampton.