A writing assignment

This is A writing assignment I completed for a writing course I did a few years back. I am sharing it with you as I thought it might be of interest. Can I suggest that you write a piece about your home town? It will be good practice.

I sometimes go to Birmingham. Although I am a Brummie by birth, it has been many years since I have actually lived in that city, so I was fairly sure I could observe the life and the various rhythms of this multi-cultured city in perfect, total anonymity without any fear of being interrupted. I had, of course, not counted on something I really should have known about, had I thought beforehand.

I settled down in a Wetherspoon pub. I like Wetherspoon pubs. You always know where you are with a Wetherspoon pub. Wide, open spaces, no music and good, cheap beer and good, cheap food. Clearly ideal for a writer.

It was a quiet pub in a street just off New Street in the heart of Birmingham’s financial district.. I chose a peaceful vantage point so that I could keep an eye on the inside of the pub and the outside, at the same time

I contentedly supped my pint. This particular daytime drinking was OK, as it was purely for research purposes only and for one fleeting moment I idly considered putting it down on my tax returns as a legitimate item of expenditure! I decided to indulge in a little people watching.

The clientele of the pub were a mixed bunch. Over there were an elderly couple sipping coffee and eating sandwiches. They both looked frazzled and grim-faced. Apparently they should have arrived somewhere else six hours previously, but British Rail, Virgin, Railtrack or whatever flavour of the month name our beloved rail transport providers are using these days, had only just managed to get them to Birmingham New Street, about 200 miles short of their destination. They had not wanted to remain in the confines of the station. Understandable. Have you SEEN New Street station recently? They had used their Wetherspoon pub guide to find the nearest Wetherspoon pub.

Outside the pub very well dressed young men and women wandered in and out of the new Mini-Sainsbury store. These, I realised, were probably inhabitants of the new exclusive apartment complexes that have been springing up in and around Birmingham these last few years. £ 800,000 or even £1,000,000 can buy you a fairly substantial gaff. If I won the lottery, I thought, as I returned to my vantage point, perhaps I would buy one and move back “home.”

“Ello” a rich, Brummie tone. “You mind if I join you?” “No, not at all” I said. He sat down at the table and said: “You are people watching, aren’t you?”

I suppose I could have denied it. But, perhaps it was because I was relaxed by being amongst fellow Brummies, or perhaps it was that sense of impending Nirvana that one can only find in either true spiritual enlightenment –or at the start of a second pint of IPA- I decided that honestly really was the best policy.

“Yes, I said. I am. Do you do it?” A shock. The words that came from my mouth were almost pure Brummie in inflexion. My partner who hails from Plymouth is amazed how that when I have been drinking alcohol the long-dormant Brummie accent will reassert itself, and colour my speech patters. I think it frightened her, the first time it happened.

“Yes, I am. I am a writer myself and I use people as my raw resource, if you like. Something to do with me time, like. Took it up after I got made redundant. The last time, that is.”

I sympathised with him, but wondered at the incongruity of coming 35 miles and meeting a fellow writer. Are there possibly more of us than I had thought possible?

“That’s interesting. I am a writer, too.”

“Oh, God! What a coincidence!” He shouted, his voice becoming a little shrill towards the end of the sentence. Even though in normal speech my Brummie accent is nearly totally wiped out by over 30 years of living in Shropshire, I still carry the mark of Brummie speech. The rising at the end of the sentence. My wife  reckons that this is only really noticeable when we are out shopping. Apparently the price of items in many shops is met with an almost supersonic, agonised shriek of “HOW Much?!” There was also the Brummie habit of bringing religion into every conversation. Oh, God! Yes, we do that, us Brummies. One of the reasons why it is called the Holy City, apparently.

So, rather than people watching, we chatted. Of course, as often happens to me, the coincidences mounted up. We had both been born in Ladywood, literally just round the corner from each other, our parents had both taken us for the Brummie traditional Sunday walk down the canal towpaths, and our fathers had –although we never did work out if they had met- worked at “The Rootes” in Birmingham. My father in the stores, his as a tool fitter. A job at “The Rootes” had been seen as a job for life. That remark (I honestly can’t remember which one of us made it) set us off in fits of giggles. After all, the concept of a job for life, or for any substantial length of time is as alien as anything else we could imagine.

We talked about our writing, local writing groups, and the various magazines for writers, and the styles that we employ. His, historical realism, mine current reality.

We both also established that we were traitors. We supported neither Brummie team, but both followed the fortunes of West Brom. As we left the pub we shook hands. At the bottom of Bennetts Hill where it joins New Street, He weaved his way to the Central Library –soon to be closed and re-located due to concrete fatigue, and I turned left and crossed the road, marvelling as I always do at the older Brummie’s method of crossing the road in the teeth of heavy traffic. They just put their head down and scurry across, as if not catching the eye of a driver will stop him from running them over!

Is it the beer I have consumed, or the fact that I grew up outside of Birmingham? I wait, patient and sheep-like where New Street joins Stephenson Street, where the ramp goes up towards the station. I cross the road, and as I amble up the ramp, I must have a really idiotic grin on my face, as I pass these people, these Brummies still lucky enough to live in the city that I love. One day, perhaps I’ll move back. No. I realise that I won’t. But it is a nice pipedream, all the same.

Then I had to find out how many times I had to make the New Street dash. Where you have to run up and down several sets of steps as they change the departure platform for the train home. This time, rather strangely, the train arrives at the designated platform and on time. Almost scary, that. I snooze on the journey, I realised that I’ll probably suffer in the morning, but it would be worth it.