I LIVED NEAR A SERIAL KILLER

A sensational title I know but it is actually true. Whilst staying with my parents this weekend I walked from the outskirts of the city into Gloucester and as I walked I remembered my bedsit there in the 1980's.

When I first left school I worked for a few years before going to college in Birmingham to study photography, and so I lived in Gloucester in 1986/7. My bedsit was in a big Victorian block on Belgrave Road, which was two roads up from Cromwell Street where Fred and Rosemary West lived. I regularly cut up Cromwell Street on the way to work and probably walked past the Wests or their children. They were charged in 1994, Fred with 12 murders, Rosemary with 10. Oddly a friend knew the psychiatrist assigned to Fred after he was arrested.

The picture is the only one I took on my walk. The scrambling plant is a pyracantha often called Firethorn, not because of it's colour but because it is a poisonous plant with toxic thorns that cause a burning skin rash on contact. The plant also produces hydrogen cyanide and the berries can be fatal if ingested.

I promise my next blog entry will be more uplifting!

Comments

A Lovely Pair of Pins

I knew the expression 'pins' referring to legs but had to Google what the Cockney rhyming slang comes from. It looks like 'pins & pegs', but there are some great alternatives like 'bacon & eggs' and 'dolly pegs'. I think I might start trying to incorporate more Cockney into my everyday speak, I do have London roots but they are more South (Saff) London than East London, where I think it originates. Anyway this is all to illustrate a new picture that sits quite neatly with an older picture. So brogues, legs and a sea view from my two main muses. This might be turning into a set... Oh by the way the top view is Morecambe Bay and the lower image is from The Wirral looking across towards Wales. The North West of England is a beautiful place, with some stylish residents.

Liverpool Periphery

L1 City Centre L2 City Centre L3 City Centre, Everton, Vauxhall L4 Anfield, Kirkdale, Walton L5 Anfield, Everton, Kirkdale, Vauxhall L6 Anfield, City Centre, Everton, Fairfield, Kensington, Tuebrook L7 City Centre, Edge Hill, Fairfield, Kensington L8 City Centre, Dingle Toxteth L9 Aintree, Fazakerley, Orrell Park, Walton L10 Aintree Village, Fazakerley L11 Croxteth, Clubmoor, Gillmoss, Norris Green

Hold Your Hair In Deep Devotion

At last after a week of being indoors, I walked into the light! I went solo and had a photography day in Liverpool, just what the doctor ordered, as they say. I'm a bit out of words at the moment and was going to include a Philip Larkin poem, but I've been thinking that Alex Turner is my modern day poet hero and this is my favourite track on AM, tucked away at the end. He's in his twenties and yet the words suggest a time before he was born, filling my head with images and memories. I've included a link to the track if you want to listen to The Arctic Monkey doing their thing whilst taking in my pictures... UPDATE Well since writing the above it has been pointed out to me that the song is actually based on a poem by John Cooper Clarke, which makes sense of the time frame (being written in the early Eighties) and the fact that I responded to the lyrics like a poem. Apparently Alex Turner first heard it read by his English teacher whilst at school. So mayb

Marc Provins

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