The MOST IMPORTANT PLACES in my seven-plus decades of life on this earth are Barnstaple, Exeter, Salford, San Sebastian, Stuttgart, Sheffield, Warrington, Moscow, Ronda, Prague, Adelaide, Chalon-sur-Saône, Luxembourg and Maulbronn.
[World map courtesy of Adobe Stock]
You will notice that there are 14 places in my list. A Baker’s-Plus Dozen, then.
These are towns and cities in Australia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the former Soviet Union, Spain and the UK.
They represent significant places in my life journey.
1 Barnstaple, Devon
My birthplace. I lived in this North Devon town for the first 13 years of my life. I was born there in a cottage hospital (a type of hospital long extinct) to John and Vera. Dad was a Welshman and mum a Devonshire dumpling.
We lived in three houses in Barum (Roman name). My parents, both from poor working-class backgrounds, were keen to get on in life. We started off in a brand-new council house, graduated to a terraced house, which my parents did up and sold for a profit and bought my gran’s rented house from her landlord and we all lived there for a couple of years.
Barnstaple, Devon [Wikipedia]
I surrendered my tonsils and almost lost a finger, and I nearly became a Jehovah’s Witness. I was a Scout Cub and went to the local Methodist Church where I met my second girlfriend, Bev. I used to walk her home from church; we never held hands; never even kissed. I was 12.
I was head boy of my primary school, where my first "girlfriend" was Yvonne, passed the 11-plus and went to Barnstaple Boys’ Grammar School. I was there for two years before we suddenly moved south to Exeter, the county town.
Barnstaple Boys' G S (now Park Community College)
2 Exeter, Devon
We moved to “the big city” when I was 13. At Hele’s School I captained the U14 cricket team, played rugger for the U15s and tennis for the 1st VI. I also took up hockey outside of school where I played for Exeter Hornets.
In the five years at Hele’s, we lived in two houses. I went to the Methodist Church where I met my next girlfriend, Jayne, who was older than I was. I was now 16, so we held hands, and we kissed, but I remained a virgin.
Exeter aerial view [Photo: Martin & Co.]
Later, in the Sixth Form, I started going to the Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) church where I found my next girlfriend, Andrea. She was very pretty. We petted a lot and then started having unprotected sex pretty regularly – how stupid can you get? Yet, we got away with it!
Academically I did well and won a place at Salford University, my first choice, to study for a degree in German and Spanish.
3 Salford, Greater Manchester
I loved living and studying in Salford, despite the city being the “Dirty Old Town” of Ralph McTell’s song.
The pubs were great, the beer was cheap and good (I particularly liked Boddingtons, Holts, Hyde’s, Sam Smiths and Oldham Bitter).
I joined the Drama Society, as word had gone round that most members were girls! This proved to the case.
I played the monkey in "The Fireraisers" by Swiss dramatist Max Frisch. The play was an allegory of the rise of Nazism which led to the Second World War.
The splendid original building of Salford University
My make-up artist was a gorgeous Welsh girl called Bronwyn, a Social Studies student. We dated for a while but it petered out as I went off on my year abroad.
The Modern Languages course was also stuffed full of beautiful girls, most of whom I fell madly in love with (from a distance – they never knew!). It wasn’t until my second year that I got a girlfriend, or should I say, Hazel, a Yorkshire lass, got me! She asked me out!
After my year abroad in San Sebastian and Stuttgart (see below) I returned to Salford and found a flat in Upper Kersal (North Salford) with my pal Mel from Belfast.
Out of the blue we got a Thursday night “gig” as the resident folk singers at The Star Inn, Salford.
The one-armed landlord called us "Hobson's Choice". Did he have a sense of humour or was he taking the p**s?
BTW, how does someone with only one arm / hand serve drinks?
I started dating one of the “groupies” who showed up every week. She turned out to be a Mod Lang student at Salford too, albeit two years below me.
Jeryl was studying French and Russian and she subsequently became my first wife of 30 years.
However, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Paul and Mel performing at The Star Inn [Photo: Jeryl Burgess]
4 San Sebastián (now Donostia), Guipuzkoa, Spain
Our Spanish group was sent off to the capital of the Basque province Guipuzkoa as part of our year abroad.
We studied at the university there for three months and then had another three months in the country to “do what we liked”, ie travel, work, further study.
San Sebastian [Photo courtesy of Spain.info]
At the start I was seeing Brenda, a fellow student, but she quickly “dumped” me for an older and richer Spanish man. I was “gutted”.
Meanwhile, I had got myself a job with a local tour operator, Dorfe, first of all in the office, then as a tour guide with Catholic pilgrims who were doing a two-centre holiday in Lourdes (the shrine to Bernadette in France) and in San Seb.
I absolutely loved being in San Sebastian, and said to myself that I would like to live in Spain permanently one day.
Some of our student group in San Sebastian's port
I returned to work the high season for the next three or four years. In so doing I further whetted my appetite to emigrate.
During this time I had brief flirtations with three Irish colleagues, a couple of French girls, two Spanish colleagues and two English clients.
Despite it being the 70s, back then condoms were not available in strictly Roman Catholic Spain, still a dictatorship under General Franco.
This evil man didn’t die until 1975, so all these relationships went unconsummated.
[Photo courtesy of Euro Weekly News]
As for emigrating to Spain, that took another four decades, a nervous breakdown, redundancy and divorce, but I got here in the end.
5 Stuttgart, West Germany
Stuttgart was my home for six months as the second part of my year abroad, following hard on the heels of San Sebastian. I’d been allocated a great job as a translator at Daimler-Benz AG, the manufacturers of Mercedes-Benz cars.
A few weeks in I was rushed to hospital for an emergency appendectomy. That was an interesting episode. My student insurance only entitled me to 3rd class care, although I have no complaints whatsoever.
Stuttgart [Photo: Trip Advisor]
My fellow patients were all foreigners, ie non-Germans. They were Gastarbeiter (guest workers).
A spinster colleague from the office was my most frequent visitor. She introduced me to books by Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, neither of whom I had read before.
Another visitor was Jac, a Welsh girl from my course who was also studying German and Spanish, and was in all of my classes and tutorials. She too had a placement in Stuttgart, at Bosch.
More about Jac later …..
Some novels by John Steinbeck [Image courtesy of Salinas Public Library]
Back at work, after a period of convalescence, life went on.
No love life materialised, but I had some other great experiences, Highlights were a weekend in Paris; seeing Alexis Korner live in Stuttgart; attending the Munich Oktoberfest (Beer Festival); and visiting the Schwarzwald (Black Forest).
Full-time staff and work placement students at Daimler-Benz
20 years later Stuttgart re-appeared in my life. I was working for St Helen’s Council, where I led on educational links.
The twin town in Germany was Stuttgart.
I set up a successful work experience exchange for sixth formers, so I enjoyed a couple of monitoring visits in the capital of Baden-Würrtemberg before I left St Helens for a better job with another Merseyside council, Sefton.
The Daimler-Benz plant in Stuttgart [dbmg]
6 Sheffield, West Yorkshire
After graduation I decided to go into teaching. To do that I needed a teaching qualification, as a post-graduate, that's a one-year PGCE (Post-graduate Certificate in Education).
The only place I could find offering my two languages, German and Spanish, was Sheffield City College, now Sheffield Hallam University.
So, off I went to this “steel” city just across the Pennines from where I had studied in Salford.
"Steely" Sheffield [Photo: Trip Advisor]
I suffered a little "culture shock"! I had to get used to a few things, like the accent and the custom of men calling other men “love”, but I liked the city a lot. Working class, my kinda people.
I found lodgings, a huge room in an old, detached house in a posh-ish district, within walking distance of the College.
I liked Sheffield beer (mostly Ward’s). By this time beer, specifically real ale, was becoming an important factor in my life.
As for lectures/classes I was the only one doing Spanish!
I joined the Amateur Dramatic Group which was very forward-thinking and well-resourced.
I appeared in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” by Muriel Spark as Teddy, Miss Brodie’s lover.
We also made a film of the Irish play “Riders to the Sea” by J M Synge, in which I played the lead.
Maggie Smith as Miss Jean Brodie [Photo: Rotten Tomatoes]
We postgrad students appeared to be a very attractive proposition for the non-postgrad girls. I was seduced by an undergraduate member of the cast, who came home with me after the post-show party on the last night.
I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember her name, but she was really nice. I had a couple of other offers from girls in my “digs”, but they had boyfriends, so I politely turned them down.
Besides, I was technically still dating Jeryl (qv) although she was on her year abroad in The Soviet Union and France, and I hadn't seen her for ages.
7 Warrington, Cheshire
This former “wire” town in Rugby League territory with two breweries and a “flat cap” image transformed itself into a modern “new town”, home to the first IKEA store to open in the UK, the largest Marks & Spencer superstore, “Mr Smith’s” nightclub and a thriving “mecca” for lovers of real ale.
Warrington's "golden gates" [Wikipedia]
Warrington and her surrounding villages are important to me for several reasons.
I lived in the town for a quarter of a century; my two children were born and went to school there; I was governor of two schools; and I played hockey, tennis and squash at Warrington Sports Club.
I also got to play some great roles as a member of The Playmakers of Stockton Heath. These included Biff in Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons”; the police inspector in JB Priestley’s “An Inspector Calls”; Donald, the tragic boy who burned to death in Dennis Potter’s "Blue Remembered Hills"; and the best part I’ve ever played, The Emcee in “Cabaret”.
We lived in the same house for 25 years, although it went through several upgrades, largely by my own hand.
The Kit Kat Girls in "Cabaret" [Photo: The Playmakers]
After my “annus horribilis” (nervous breakdown, redundancy and divorce in quick succession), I moved away from Warrington, but returned a few years later to live with my mum before I bought myself a Victorian “pile” to renovate.
I finally bade farewell to Warrington when I emigrated to Spain in 2008.
Look out for Part 2 coming soon .....
© Pablo de Ronda
Links:
From North Devon to South Spain in six decades - Part One - Olive Press News Spain
From North Devon to South Spain in seven decades… Part Two: After The Hangover - Secret Serrania de Ronda
From North Devon to South Spain in seven decades… Part Three: A New Life in Andalucía
From North Devon to South Spain in seven decades… Epilogue: ¡La carne de burro no es transparente! (You’re blocking the sunlight!)
Photos:
Adobe Stock, anon, dbmg, Facebook, Jeryl, Karl Smallman, Park Community College, Paul Whitelock, Playmakers, Rotten Tomatoes, Trip Advisor, Wikipedia
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