I enjoyed this so much that I forgot I had eggs boiling ... until I heard the third strange "pop" from the kitchen, and realized all the water had boiled off, and the eggs were quietly exploding. The loss of the eggs, may they rest in peace, was totally worth it.
You’re ever so good at lying! I believed you both times about the shopping malls. I actually thought to myself: “Well, that’s just about the loveliest shopping mall I ever did see!”. I even thought perhaps it might be you in the driving seat of the caterpillar and had to zoom in, which made me laugh - cute pompoms! God you’re good and now I feel a fool, but a very happy fool after having read this little slice of heaven. Btw - if anyone finds the horse with the big bumhole, I want it!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane Tom. It's been over 35 years since I last walked into the Broadmarsh Centre, but I do remember doing my Sainsbury's shopping there before catching a bus home to West Bridgford after work!! I also remember collecting the Green Stamps, that you filled books with, and took to the Green Stamp shop there to exchange a mountain of books for some obscure, useless kitchen implement!! Or were they Players No 6 Cigarette cards??? On our recent visit to Nottingham we were advised not to take that trip down memory lane by going into the city . . . . . . looking at the recent photograph of Broadmarsh, I'm happy we didn't!
Green Shield stamps, I think they were called. And there were pink stamps too, if I recall correctly? Thanks for that memory jog—I remember being given the job of sticking them into the little books, using a sponge to dampen whole pages of them. And wasn’t there a catalogue of what you could get as rewards that read like The Generation Game? Toaster, cuddly toy, decanter and glasses…
Thanks Martin. Wow, that looks brilliant! Can’t believe that was happening just up the road from where I grew up and I didn’t know. I will definitely give it a watch at some point.
My favorite automatist (who depicts Heaven in the Ride of Life as unremittingly bureacratically boring) lives down your end (I think), at Stithians, Cornwall. He's a brilliant, devious man. You'd like him.
Im very fond of modern automata so guessed who you meant. I looked up the ride of life and found this great (poor quality) film about it. Paul Spooner is the artist with shortish dark hair and round glasses https://youtu.be/-s1StT3RCIk?si=-rOWubwHQChB4B8f
The Broadmarsh Centre looks too artistic to have been a shopping centre. The space, the sculptures, and the light fixtures seem more suited to a concert hall or art gallery.
Another lovely piece. That caterpillar is truly menacing and I can imagine myself (small) clutching an adult's hand in case it wriggled off its plinth and came to get me. Shudder. A good reason - in my view - for not being a child in Nottingham!!
I’m around your age and grew up in Derby. We went shopping in Nottingham maybe once or twice a year as a very special treat. I had completely forgotten about The Broadmarsh Centre and these crazy guys! Thanks for bringing back some long lost memories x
Writing about your childhood can be quite cathartic and when you arrive at your teenage years, at times emotional, but then you get married, have children and life changes again. I would love to have seen those timber sculptures, what an amazingly talented man. I hope you find eventually that those pieces are safe and not destroyed like the shopping centre.
Really enjoyed that. Fascinating piece. Those beautiful sculptures though, it would be marvellous if they still existed somewhere. Quite extraordinary work. Makes me rather sad that they are lost..
For some reason - I am hearing / reading this internally with a P. Cunk narrator voice in mind - Dave Brubeck’s living / reading room / entry way - mall is wonderful! I’d love to be a giant ginger cat hanging out somewhere in that photo while Dave is practicing/ working on a piece.
I loved this article, Tom , perhaps because I was also born in Nottingham in 1975 and share some cultural references. But my main memory of the Broadmarsh was writhing around in agony on the polished benches due to a pain in my abdomen that 40 years later turned out to be appendicitis (a long story, and probably the longest undiagnosed case not resulting in death). My wife fondly remembers the frog and caterpillar and is very sad they have been ‘put to sleep’.
As for myself, I was entranced by The Emett Clock in the posh ‘Vic’ and would beg my mum to take me to watch and hear the performance of the watery silver birds and butterflies. To this day, one of my favourite pieces of music is Rameau's Gigue en Rondeau II. A lovely childhood memory. But the Vic also had its shameful share of hell on earth: the bus station where I had to catch the bus home from school. It was a scene from a horror movie: a cavernous black hole possessed by disfigured pigeons and gas-chamber levels of exhaust fumes. I wonder if it’s still there? Perhaps the next time I go to Nottingham I’ll take a peek down memory lane.
Blimey, Marek. Some big parallels here. My new book 1983 features appendicitis (I also had a late-diagnosed case, when I was 5) and the clock! I remember that bus station and its fumes so well. A daily feature of my life from 1991-94. And once very nearly getting locked in the Vic Centre for the night by mistake. Terrifying!
Like @Midnight Dufresne I also played on the wooden sculptures in the Poole Arndale Centre. Even as a kid in the 1970s I could tell that they were special and I was so glad they were eventually brought back, even though I haven’t lived there since 1982.
When I moved to Manchester I was mildly affronted to find that they had an Arndale as well, so I could no longer hold a clear idea of what and where “The Arndale” was.
I enjoyed this so much that I forgot I had eggs boiling ... until I heard the third strange "pop" from the kitchen, and realized all the water had boiled off, and the eggs were quietly exploding. The loss of the eggs, may they rest in peace, was totally worth it.
Love the idea of a large wooden caterpillar in someone's dusty garage slowly pupating into a wooden butterfly.
You’re ever so good at lying! I believed you both times about the shopping malls. I actually thought to myself: “Well, that’s just about the loveliest shopping mall I ever did see!”. I even thought perhaps it might be you in the driving seat of the caterpillar and had to zoom in, which made me laugh - cute pompoms! God you’re good and now I feel a fool, but a very happy fool after having read this little slice of heaven. Btw - if anyone finds the horse with the big bumhole, I want it!
Yep, So good at this wit, and seeing an abundance of it, my brain got overloaded and now I need coffee 24/7 to keep up.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane Tom. It's been over 35 years since I last walked into the Broadmarsh Centre, but I do remember doing my Sainsbury's shopping there before catching a bus home to West Bridgford after work!! I also remember collecting the Green Stamps, that you filled books with, and took to the Green Stamp shop there to exchange a mountain of books for some obscure, useless kitchen implement!! Or were they Players No 6 Cigarette cards??? On our recent visit to Nottingham we were advised not to take that trip down memory lane by going into the city . . . . . . looking at the recent photograph of Broadmarsh, I'm happy we didn't!
Green Shield stamps, I think they were called. And there were pink stamps too, if I recall correctly? Thanks for that memory jog—I remember being given the job of sticking them into the little books, using a sponge to dampen whole pages of them. And wasn’t there a catalogue of what you could get as rewards that read like The Generation Game? Toaster, cuddly toy, decanter and glasses…
I also !!
I picked out a cake slicer
A lovely piece. It reminded me of this rare documentary of a short-lived shopping mall phenomenon that I feel sure you'll slso treasure https://youtu.be/-s1StT3RCIk?si=mhip0j_kecTTzu8a
Thanks Martin. Wow, that looks brilliant! Can’t believe that was happening just up the road from where I grew up and I didn’t know. I will definitely give it a watch at some point.
My favorite automatist (who depicts Heaven in the Ride of Life as unremittingly bureacratically boring) lives down your end (I think), at Stithians, Cornwall. He's a brilliant, devious man. You'd like him.
Stithians is rather greedy when it comes to automatists the brilliant Paul Spooner lives there too.
Angela, you just made me reslise I omitted his name in my reply about him above...
Im very fond of modern automata so guessed who you meant. I looked up the ride of life and found this great (poor quality) film about it. Paul Spooner is the artist with shortish dark hair and round glasses https://youtu.be/-s1StT3RCIk?si=-rOWubwHQChB4B8f
The Broadmarsh Centre looks too artistic to have been a shopping centre. The space, the sculptures, and the light fixtures seem more suited to a concert hall or art gallery.
Another lovely piece. That caterpillar is truly menacing and I can imagine myself (small) clutching an adult's hand in case it wriggled off its plinth and came to get me. Shudder. A good reason - in my view - for not being a child in Nottingham!!
I’m around your age and grew up in Derby. We went shopping in Nottingham maybe once or twice a year as a very special treat. I had completely forgotten about The Broadmarsh Centre and these crazy guys! Thanks for bringing back some long lost memories x
If Frank Loyd Wright designed mall bugs, they would look just like those…hmmm
Writing about your childhood can be quite cathartic and when you arrive at your teenage years, at times emotional, but then you get married, have children and life changes again. I would love to have seen those timber sculptures, what an amazingly talented man. I hope you find eventually that those pieces are safe and not destroyed like the shopping centre.
Really enjoyed that. Fascinating piece. Those beautiful sculptures though, it would be marvellous if they still existed somewhere. Quite extraordinary work. Makes me rather sad that they are lost..
Have you seen this?
https://youtu.be/2v803Z7LjWg?si=aYjgWxbR7t9Aezxu
This is AMAZING! Thank you so much for sending, Richard.
Impossible for you to write anything mediocre. What a fabulous gift, the reader just loses themselves and forgets they should be tending to…
Great read!
Thanks Sheryl!
For some reason - I am hearing / reading this internally with a P. Cunk narrator voice in mind - Dave Brubeck’s living / reading room / entry way - mall is wonderful! I’d love to be a giant ginger cat hanging out somewhere in that photo while Dave is practicing/ working on a piece.
Jim agrees!
I loved this article, Tom , perhaps because I was also born in Nottingham in 1975 and share some cultural references. But my main memory of the Broadmarsh was writhing around in agony on the polished benches due to a pain in my abdomen that 40 years later turned out to be appendicitis (a long story, and probably the longest undiagnosed case not resulting in death). My wife fondly remembers the frog and caterpillar and is very sad they have been ‘put to sleep’.
As for myself, I was entranced by The Emett Clock in the posh ‘Vic’ and would beg my mum to take me to watch and hear the performance of the watery silver birds and butterflies. To this day, one of my favourite pieces of music is Rameau's Gigue en Rondeau II. A lovely childhood memory. But the Vic also had its shameful share of hell on earth: the bus station where I had to catch the bus home from school. It was a scene from a horror movie: a cavernous black hole possessed by disfigured pigeons and gas-chamber levels of exhaust fumes. I wonder if it’s still there? Perhaps the next time I go to Nottingham I’ll take a peek down memory lane.
Blimey, Marek. Some big parallels here. My new book 1983 features appendicitis (I also had a late-diagnosed case, when I was 5) and the clock! I remember that bus station and its fumes so well. A daily feature of my life from 1991-94. And once very nearly getting locked in the Vic Centre for the night by mistake. Terrifying!
Like @Midnight Dufresne I also played on the wooden sculptures in the Poole Arndale Centre. Even as a kid in the 1970s I could tell that they were special and I was so glad they were eventually brought back, even though I haven’t lived there since 1982.
When I moved to Manchester I was mildly affronted to find that they had an Arndale as well, so I could no longer hold a clear idea of what and where “The Arndale” was.