City 13: Durham

31.07.2020

The House of Leon

2020. The New Normal.

Its over six years since I began this madness, a year since last I walked. This is an opportunity stop en route to Scotland with the Rowe family, Alan, Zephan and Lawrence. I walked Lichfield with them back in 2015 and now its time for Durham.

 A lot has changed for them and me since last we walked. Covid has come and remains amongst us. The country and world face an uncertain future. 

It is as if a New Age has begun.

Now its like we're all

behind bars.

Location 1: Ask!

Lichfield to Durham is a 171 mile journey by car. We leave our home city around 13.00 on a Friday afternoon in sweltering 31 Degree heat. Thankfully, Al's Picasso has good aircon and some of us are chitty chatty. For those that aren't, there are plenty of ipads and iphones with flashing lights and bleeping aliens, things to kill and things to collect, to keep them busy.

We park in Walkergate, a brownstone carport, and quickly locate a restaurant to suit all palettes. That restaurant is Ask Italian and like masked bandits we ask to enter and eat. The Asian waitress is kind and indicates a choice of indoor or out door tables. We plump for outdoors and in our shaded corner we sit and enjoy the breeze, whilst watching the wildlife. Menus are delivered and we are left to deliberate as the sun begins to slink towards the horizo, like a chastened whippet.. 

The menu seems abridged and thus our choices are simpler. Al and I plump for pizzas, Zeph for seafood, Laurie for sausages. As the waitress returns, we re-mask and she takes our orders quickly and efficiently. This is one positive effect of Covid and something we experience time and time again in restaurants and shops; greater economy and shorter waiting times. 

When the food arrives, we munch away the gnawing pangs of hunger, Laurie steadfastly refusing to eat his chips, Zeph savouring his seafood, Al slicing at his pizza with surgical precision. My pizza has the consistency of industrial rubber and after a while I abandon it, like an election manifesto. Not terribly auspicious but the others are content with their choices. Looking around, one cannot escape the fact that the streets are largely empty and everybody is nervous and narky.

A sense of chaos and lawlessness filters through the early evening air. 

Location 2: Gala Theatre and Cinema.

Zephan instructs.

Opposite Ask Italian, is the 15 million pound Gala Theatre, purpose-built and bristlng with artistic intent. A note on the door confirms that the building has been closed due to the Covid outbreak and there is no definite date for reopening. I am reminded of the outbreak of plague in Shakespeare in Love which necessitates the closing of both the Rose and the Curtain that brings such misery to  players and audinces alike. 

Being of a theatrical persuason, Zeph and I have both missed creeping the boards during our time of plague. There is also the uncertainty about whether audiences will return to the theatre once the doors reopen. Such gathering places seem like too great a risk for the majority of theatre goers particularly those advancing in years.

The future, for so many, is clouded and this is particulalrly true for those whose professional lives lie in the fields of entertainment, leisure and tourism. There have been some Government initiatives to ease the financial burdens but do they go far enough? 

It remains to be seen which businesses will survive the months ahead. 

Location 3: The Journey Sculpture

Set down, set down thy honourable load...

Life is full of hidden links and connections and this becomes one of the themes of our quest and odyssey as it unfolds. Last year, I was fortuntate enough to walk the 62.5 mile St Cuthberts Way with my Turkish friend Busra. This route, which runs from Melrose in the Scottish borders, to the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, is truly one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring in the UK and one which left a deep and lasting impression on me.

And so I am delighted to find my old friend and inspirer Cuthbert close to hand in Millenium Square. But how is this possible?

A little way downwind of Ask and the Gala lies the 2008 sculpture of Fenwick Lawson's the Journey which portrays the body of Cuthbert as it carried on its final journey by a party of monks to Durham. The end of the Monk's Journey, in 955, marked the founding of Durham so it is a moment of high significance and historic importance. 

However due to frequent abuse by late night drunks the statue is now to be moved to a more protected spot in the Cathedral Grounds. For more information read the related article below. 

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/durhams-renowned-sculpture-journey-new-9657875

Location 4: Looming Statues

Masks not gifts required.

Away from St Cuthbert and down past the Clayport library we wander on our own journey of discovery.  On the Clayport Bridge we are passed by three Asian girls bearing masks, not gifts. I recall seeing footage of Mask Wearers in Tokyo and London over a decade ago and thinking it excessive, now it is the New Normal.

Southwards we rumble across the bridge which traverses Leazes Road, onto Silver Street and into the Market Square which like everywhere else is more than half empty. Not so the drinkers glasses at the Market Tavern. They are definitely half full and the revellers are clearly delighted to be back in business again, able to sup a pint and yarn with their mates to their heart's content.

This may be problematic for some but not half so problematic as the looming statues that seem suddenly vulnerable on their pedestals. A wholesale re-evaluation of the culture is taking place due to events that have transpired on the other side of the pond. The ripples have spread and threaten to become waves of discontent. 

Smiling Nepture impales a sea monster with his trident whilst a grim faced hussar prepares to charge. Heroes and Gods of yore are no longer celebrated as they were but have become Patriarchal figures of loathing to many, to be pulled down, broken apart and cast away. Should this wholesale purge be allowed? The Berlin Wall, symbol of division was pulled down in 1989. Was that a necessary act of vandalism? Would the loss of all our Gods and monsters, be they slavers or Imperialists, likewise be a necessary act of desecration?

Respond below but keep it civil. I'm merely asking a question. 

Location 5: Oh Calcutta!

Floating Umbrellas. Pride, in the name of love.

As Silver Street becomes Saddlers street we skip over the cobbles looking for things of note. At the junction of High Street my gaze is suddenly arrested and I pause to gawp. Down past Pandora's (Box) the way is strung with a rainbow-array of coloured umbrellas.

It's a joyous sight and I assume that it is a part of the City's Gay Pride Celebration. 

A little digging reveals that it is indeed a remnant of the 2018 May Bank Holiday Durham Pride celebration and that Durham has a thing about umbrellas. An exhibition was previously held at the Gala to great acclaim and, as a result, the 5th Annual Event of Pride sold umbrellas for marchers to wave high and proud as a sign of solidarity and to protect them from the rain.

Unfortunately, the sun shone all day, so sales were down, but the event was ajudged a glittering success. 

Location 6: Mad as a Hatter.

A city, I often think is only as good as its cafes and Durham is no exception.  Many of the cities finest establishments are still boarded up but we can peer in at the windows still and dream. 

Al points out the Mugwump, a cafe named after a Fantastic Beast in William S, Burroughs 1959 classic 'Naked Lunch'.  It looks a little seedy around the gills which I love and exudes a definite atmosphere. I suggest that Shakespeare should be thrust from the Lit syllabus and replaced with Burroughs who to my mind has more to say about the current world horror show than just about any 20th century author. Al raises an eyebrow and says nothing.

Zephan meanwhile points out the Mad Hatter cafe with its tumbling playing cards and anxious white rabbits. The Hatter is a role he covets and one I have already played. I think he would be perfect for it.

Location 7: Pottermore.

Now, as I discovered on my five day pilgrimmage with the Rowes there is no bigger Harry Potter fan in the world than Zephan Rowe. I'm sure that if he went on Mastermind, albeit that he is aged just 12, with HP as his specialist subject he would win hands down.

As soon as we enter the Cathedral close he pauses and begins to twitch. Harry he murmurs between half closed lips. Then. "This place has known magic." And indeed it has. Unlike him I have done my homework and know of the Potter link but he just spots it straight away without clues or hints. I am truly impressed.

Durham Cathedral, suitably towering and Gothic since 1093 helped considerably in the theming of the Wizard World's most celebrated School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Hogwarts, set whither we are bound on the banks of Loch Shiel where the hippogriff doth fly. It supplies locations also for the Hogwarts Quad and courtyard and as such has passed into legend. 

Canterbury, unlike the kind souls who run Durham Cathedral refused permission for filming to take place in its less than hallowed grounds, due to the books pagan content.

They have lived to rue the day.

Location 8: The Horror, the Horror, the Modernist Horror!

Here we come, walking down the street...
We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet.
heh heh we're the Rowes!!!

Leaving the Cathedral Close we barrel down Dun Cow Lane and pass the flaking frontispiece that belongs to the department of Theology and Religion. Or is it Religion and Theology? I am reminded of actors practising their Northern Irish accents by saying Hi Ni Brine Ki but am too dignified to comment. 

Sprawling gardens are glimpsed through wrought iron gates reminding us that we are cordially not invited to attend and that the world is still divided into the haves and havenots and that without possessing the keys to life's front doors one is largely bereft.

Turning right onto Bow Lane and from there into a wooded grove we descend to the Kingsgate Bridge which straddles the River Wear. The bridge is grade one and listed but I don't know why. Designed in 1963 by Sir Ove Arup (who sounds like a character from Harry Potter) it is a concrete monstrosity overlooking another concrete monstrosity, the concrete bunker of the Student's Union Building.

I wish both bombed into oblivion. 

Below us boaters dip their oars and I suggest it is time for us to resume our journey northwards. After two hours munching and looking all agree it is time to get back into the car 

Location 9: Castle and Car.

Behind the Cathdral lurks the Castle but like just about everything else in the city it is still closed. We snip snap away, like its Oklahoma, leaving the castle and its treasures for another day.

We have been strangely blessed in some ways. The city has not been rammed with other tourists, just a few locals and we have been left to our own devices. No need to queue or wait. No need to barge past or avoid the crowd.

Durham gets a four out of five star review from me. I will defintely return when the country returns to normal. If it ever does. I hope you do too. 

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