Love and loathing for home
Post categories: Buckley, Connah's Quay, Corwen, Denbigh, Denbighshire, Flint, Flintshire, Holywell, Llangollen, Mold, Prestatyn, Rhyl, Ruthin, Shotton, St Asaph, Wrexham
| 09:01 UK time, Tuesday, 3 July 2007
Interesting, isn't it, that you can love a place even for its bad points - warts and all, I guess.
An anonymous poet from Flint sent us an interesting ditty today. It helps if you know the place to understand what he's referring to, calling the tower blocks 'concrete lumps' and referring to the plan to demolish the maisonettes. But he still manages to convey a love for the town.
You can read the poem below - but then tell us about the blots on the landscape that have some meaning to you. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder...
The revolving door at the bottom of park,
Where old men go for their afternoon lark,
The rickety old boats by the castle on the Dee,
The once busy public houses that used to entice me.
Three concrete lumps reaching for the sky,
Their maisonette relations just waiting to die,
Shiny shopping arenas where the bank's plastic plays,
Tidy Cornist Park to while away the days.
The people are witty and there is always a laugh,
That's one of the best things about being a Taff,
And if you are rich or if you are skint,
The best place on earth will always be Flint.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
I know what you mean. You should walk the canal towpath around Stoke. The old industry buildings - the potbanks - are crumbling but there is a beauty to the place among all that decay.
Hmm... Not from Flint personally (more the Deeside persuasion- though what towns are officially included in Deeside these days? My brain's been a bit adither ever since the whole Clwyd/Flintshire fiasco).
I emigrated to the US a few years back, and don't half have pinings for Flintshire, but then when I see pictures of it again or happen upon videos with the truly, truly moronic youth running rampant there, I feel ever so slightly glad at the distance.
Shame, really; the place could be falling apart and I'd still love it; it's really the people (mostly of my generation onwards) who ruin the image.