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Monday, 31 May 2010

In my day, all this were fields

A training course - and a train - took me back to Leeds, where I spent many happy hours as a teenager browsing for cerise, batwinged items in Clockhouse at C&A. 

Things are not the same. Clockhouse is long gone. The cellar steakhouse - the height of class for a dad-and-daughter meal out in the 1980s, where you could watch people's feet go past and pretend you were in the Cheers bar - has closed.

The sewing shop has turned into something completely terrifying.


Reaching the theatre venue, however, was more comforting. A very long time ago I had a first date there, to see Reece Dinsdale in The Revenger's Tragedy.

(Where I grew up, men who took you to the theatre were few and far between. The only choice open to me was to have his children.)

Strangely, a couple of months ago Mr Coffee went to someone's office for a meeting; on the wall was the poster for the very production we'd seen. 




Larkin's almost-instinct was right. What will survive of us is love. Not steakhouses, not sewing, but love. And, of course, Reece Dinsdale.
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10 comments:

  1. Jen Walshaw31 May 2010 at 14:36

    Men who took girls to the theatre are still hard to come by - hold on tight!

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  2. Hi, I'm Natalie.31 May 2010 at 15:26

    The sewing shop is likely to give me nightmares. Ew.

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  3. Limecat31 May 2010 at 15:34

    I read Revengers Tragedy as an English undergrad. Loved it. And wasn't Mr Dinsdale a bit of a pin up once?

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  4. Lynn31 May 2010 at 18:05

    Love and a few knockout wigs.

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  5. silverpebble31 May 2010 at 23:18

    Erm, I used to have a big crush on Reece Dinsdale. What was that sitcom he was in?

    Ah, I remember Clockhouse in the 80s....

    My Gran used to remember it in the forties, when it was called "C & A modes".

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lucille31 May 2010 at 23:56

    I was riffling through Larkin yesterday, looking for Whitsun Weddings, but found something so sad I can't get it out of my head.

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  7. Ali1 June 2010 at 03:09

    Cannot get C&A batwings out of my head - it's a scary place to be!

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  8. eurolush1 June 2010 at 08:00

    Love? That's nice.

    I'm more interested in which wig you bought (and are currently sporting.)

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  9. dottycookie1 June 2010 at 09:17

    I was thinking about batwings only this morning and feeling horrified to realise that I have now grown a pair of my own.

    And how in the name of all that's decent did Reece Dinsdale end up in Corrie? It's enough to make a grown woman weep.

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  10. mary4 June 2010 at 10:03

    I'm sure I still have a batwinged top from C&A ... no wonder I can't keep up with Flylady! I must have hoarded it for 40 years!

    ReplyDelete

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