THE TRACKS SERIES OF PRINTS: Turner Street

THE TRACKS SERIES OF PRINTS:  

Turner Street 

The shoes that walked in Northfields when I was there in my first teaching job have long perished, so these are not the original soles. The school that gave me my first go at what became a 30-year long career, is now long gone and has been replaced by a small modern-looking estate and playground. 

Walking down Turner street, I thought with fondness and melancholia in equal measures of Gino, the wise old Neapolitan barber, that managed for the first time since I arrived in England to give me a decent haircut.  He understood my thick black Mediterranean hair and used his scissors with the same dexterity that my father used when he cut my hair when I was little.  It afforded me a glimpse of the past and a sense of 'home', that little barber's shop.  Always a warm greeting, always a great haircut.  Una Faccia, Una Razza, he would say, as Greeks and Italians often say about each other (One face, one race). 

If I ever had any confidence in my appearance, it was due to his clever management of my mop and his wise little sayings about life. Every Christmas he bought his regulars a bottle of Prosecco. Bless you, Gino, I hope you and my barber dad have had a chance to have a celestial glass of fizz. Salute!

Back up Turner Street, I would pass the back gate of the school on my walk home, up the main street, and towards what was called Troon Industrial Estate, and our own street and first home. St. Ive's Road, one could say was perhaps an ambitious name for a bus route, with a large textile wax-finishing factory spewing acrid smoke 24/7  and large engineering (I think) works on the other end, which connected to some scruffy fields. So many laughs were had there when I was still only in my early twenties, so many tense moments, so much I did not know about teaching, such a steep learning curve about being an adult and having responsibilities. And relationships? That is a whole new blog post, or ten. 

I took the printed versions of these impostor soles back and placed them on Turner street, near a strange quad arrangement of garages, long abandoned. There was no closure going back and my feelings and remembrances could not be captured in these photographs. So much to tell, so many conflicting memories,  so much beautiful and sad all mixed in. 

One important thing I am able to write about whilst keeping some treasured remembrances for me and no one else, for some things are just too precious for words, even for pictures. It is this: despite my fears and trepidation of working in the school for the first time and despite the workload and the sense that I knew very little, I discovered that there were many, (but really, many) brilliant students there, who subsequently emotionally and sometimes in a real sense moved away from the legacy of a post-war slum clearance estate to more enlightened vistas or greener pastures. I say this with great respect to all the people of the area.  At that time the estate was one of the places where National Front sentiments were embedded. There was even an actual physical address that functioned as a regional office.  All this I base on hearsay and living in the vicinity, and not on hard evidence. The beauty of publishing a blog is that people often correct and add to my knowledge, so I  welcome corrections and alternative viewpoints.  I also met some of the most talented teachers there. Real stars, and kind souls. 

When I came home now on the other side of town, I felt lighter for having gone back. Much has changed in appearance at least, but the little glimpse into the ragged past of Northfields is tinged with a feeling that sunny days are few and that there are a lot of closed doors still if you are born and raised there. I ended up with a decorative version of the print arranged as seen below and reworked digitally.  The words are from an old Greek song, I used to love at the time: 'I forgotten you. 

I cannot help but think that just like I sanitised and cheered up my engraved version, I have somehow done exactly that, to my memories.'

I had always intended to actually walk in the shoes whose soles I carved.  Initially, I   had dreamed of these magical steps in the snow and passers-by marveling at the storytelling qualities in these often ignored impressions.  In reality, the impressions were hard to see, but there really was something special about them. These soles unlike the ones in my 'Canary Wharf' shoes were actually detached from real shoes and so I could only take one or two impressions. And...so I did. It is my favourite print in this series so far. Temporary and hard to hold on to; like the spoken, unwritten words that pass between lovers.