I had to visit a small English seaside town to take the book shop some copies of my latest novel, Oothangbart, a subversive fable for Adults and Bears, and I was hugely relieved to finally get out of the place. I had to wait for the bus for over half an hour after it should have been there, and I had a chance to really look at the place and its inhabitants. First thing that struck me was most of the people hobbling about in the windy streets were old. I am also ‘old’, but not old like they were… people who limped, or who were huge, or looked depressed or ancient, or both. I experienced three weird dog moments. One was a rottweiler with three legs and it was keenly interested in making eye contact with me, but was on a leash, thank god. The second was a shaggy wolf-like slobbering thing, that was on a leash. The third was tiny but with a tumour bulging out of it and that also a three-legged job.
As I became more and more desperate to get out of the place, and as the wind from the sea picked up, I heard a dreadful shrieking repeated and repeated. Then into view across the shabby carpark behind me, came a group of five people. Four of them were clutching at and guiding the fifth one who was struggling and kicking and throwing her arms about and wailing as the other four grim family members probably, marched her on. That could’ve been a scene the locals are all familiar with, some mad woman perhaps. But as an outsider, and having already had close encounters with those deeply ugly dogs and noticed the dereliction of the place itself and the boringness of it, well… I was beginning to think I’d get a taxi out of there, if there was such a thing of course. Talk about Halloween, I’ve already had mine in that place that shall remain nameless, but which I am certain has been looked at carefully by Banksy. The photos here are not of the place I’m writing about, I put them up to to try to show how I felt about being there.
