Entry for December 23, 2006
I popped into Hamilton today to do some last minute Christmassy stuff. Hamilton is my home town. It is not technically the first town that I lived in. That honour belongs to Cambuslang, but as I moved away from there before I can remember anything it really doesn't count (except whn I become famous when I expect them to erect pacques and a small statue). My earliest memories are all in Hamilton, so that's really my first proper town.
As I was walking into the town centre I was trying to guage how much I still feel connected with the old place. I haven't lived there for a few years, and although I still work there day to day, it's no longer where I spend my Saturday afternoons.
As I was in the middle of these idle musings I walked past my old primary school. Or rather where it used to be.
They have demolished my Primary School. Nobody thought to ask me. Nobody sent me a questionnaire.
"Dear Mr Bayley,
We are considering bulldozing the place most intimately connected with your earliest memories; the place where once a little girl pressed a note into your hand saying 'Will you be my boyfriend'; where your essay about the joys of television was read to the class by Rubberlips McDougall; where you wept with the frustration at your inability to unravel the mysteries of the greater than/less than signs.
Naturally, we consider your view on this matter of the utmost significance, and we invite your comments before crushing your past, your memories, your very essence.
Your etc etc.
The Powers That Be"
No! I did not receive that letter. I was left to discover this fact on a Saturday afternoon two days before Christmas. I stood gaping at the empty site for some minutes. I even wondered whether I might just be looking at it from the wrong angle; some odd trick of the light teasing me. But no. It isn't there.
I immediately went for my mobile phone to text everyone who ever went to St Johns to tell them the news. At that point I realised that I only now keep up regularly with two people from primary school. This made me feel old and sad and close to death.
Two people! And one of them is my sister, so she doesn't really count. Especially because she texted me back to say she knew the school had gone because she drives past it every day. She never thought to tell me though. Never thought that I would have wanted to watch as the last piece of 1970 breeze block fell to the earth.
She is hard and callous my sister. I am glad now that I made her eat stones when she was a child.