Back to Bexleyheath

I found myself at a loose end this weekend, with 4 long hours to kill between dropping my wife off for a rehearsal, and hearing her perform in a concert later that night. As the concert was close by, it seemed the perfect opportunity to re-visit Bexleyheath.

During my teenage years, I went through Bexleyheath twice every day, on my way to and from school. As such, it does hold a little place in my heart: the many hours that I stood waiting at bus stops with friends, telling all kinds of lies about how far we had got with members of the opposite sex; the scrums to get on every bus, with old ladies tutting as boys and girls shoved each other in a desperate race to nab the best seats on the bus; fireworks being let off at bus stops, and on one memorable event, on the top of a 132; evading the security guards in the Broadway for as long as possible after closing time; watching form afar as someone dumped a load of bubble bath into the fountain by the clocktower. All of these rites of passage, of young dumb kids with nothing else better to do, are indelibly marked on my memory. But mostly I remember the seemingly eternal boredom of waiting for buses.

My return seemed to herald the first day of winter, as a cold biting wind whipped across and into me, buffeting my spirits and good cheer. I pulled my jacket tighter, and pressed on, past the laughing buddha and Asda, but the town centre seemed to echo my despondancy, looking miserable and grey. This wasn't just a reflection of the weather, but of the prevailing recessionary gloom: many of the shops had closed down, and the ones that were left looked bedraggled and worn out.

The Bexleyheath of my youth, despite there being not much to do, seemed like a town where something new was always being put up or renovated: a pedestrianised section here, a supermarket there, a new cinema and resturant complex here. Now though, it has a melancholic air: as if it's quest for constant renovation had tired it out. Resignation to its fate permeated the maudlin concrete structure of the Broadway: a realisation that such a pursuit of excellence was doomed to failure with the behemoth Bluewater on it's doorstep.

It also seemed much smaller than I remember. One Saturday, I refused to walk from one end of the Broadway to the other, because I felt it was too far. And possibly also to spite my friend, who only wanted us to walk back again in a fruitless pursuit of a girl. I distinctly remember one end of the broadway seeming like an impossible distance to travel, with so many different shops offering so many different things to the explorer intrepid enough to venture it's whole length. You'd be lucky if you didn't get lost in such a huge jungle. No such dangers on Saturday, as it only took me a couple of minutes to walk the entire length of the Broadway.

It was diffifult to know whether my horizons had grown, or whether Bexleyheath's had shrunk, but the afternoon was an intensely depressing experience. I am glad that I have moved away and moved on, and this was a transitory experience, rather than a common way to fill a weekend.