Reverie 4: No golfing allowed

Here's a couple of photos that Steve Pool took of the estate. Playing (and, presumably, the reverie, the losing of one's self that can happen during play) persists on Middlefield Lane against all odds. Here's the first which still seems to sum up so many childhoods past and present: 


























And there's this, of a sign by a park on Aisby Walk, and which, I'm sorry to say, speaks volumes about the kind of society we currently live in. Where do you begin? Fixed penalty notices? Keeping the site 'in good condition'? That the estate is troubled by golfers?




















This reminds me of what the artist, George Grosz, called his autobiography: A little Yes and a big No. Yes, you can make your own world but no, you won't. Not any more, but back in the day, in 1975, on this estate, me and my friends were making our own world. Indeed, the estate back then enabled us to do it. Here we are on that very playing field, feather-cuts, sta-prest trousers and all: Pete Needham, me, James Threakall and Mark Hemsall ... playing golf.





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