In denial
I not infrequently find myself in Cambridge these days. Sometimes, looking ahead, my mind's eye sees the red front of an Eastern Counties FS nosing around the next turn in the street. Inwardly sonant, I hear again the distinctive jabber of a Gardner 5-pot. I am subject to such hallucinations. Indeed, there are times when the surveillance cameras, yellow lines and wheelie bins melt away and, narrowing my eyes, I see again the grey streets of this perennially autumnal city thronged with bluestockings cycling to lectures at Girton. Ears! Hear again the lightly prancing hooves of the dairyman's float, with its rattling urn and ladle, as yonder Professor of Aramaic, sucking a eucalyptus lozenge, inclines his hoary head to examine the volumes on Gustave David's bookstall. Nose! Snuff the foggy air drifting up from the river, faintly permeated with horse dung and bonfire smoke from damp, distantly smouldering leaves.
But no, a blast of heat from the rear end of an arriving bus, stinking of hot metal and burning oil, dispels the dream. I stumble on a discarded mineral water bottle and rap music thuds from an aggressively driven car. I am once more on the pavements of the modern city. It is a comfort that all things must pass, and one day hi-vis jackets and mobile phones will have acquired a quaint period charm. Like this FS, seen in St Andrew's Street on Thursday 11th August 1977. Actually the town services seemed always to be handled by Bristol-engined FSs ...although this may be the false impression of an outsider. The two bicycles with baskets ...for carrying one's textbooks and lecture notes... propped against the pub on the opposite side of the street, are a nice Cambridge touch.
In denial
I not infrequently find myself in Cambridge these days. Sometimes, looking ahead, my mind's eye sees the red front of an Eastern Counties FS nosing around the next turn in the street. Inwardly sonant, I hear again the distinctive jabber of a Gardner 5-pot. I am subject to such hallucinations. Indeed, there are times when the surveillance cameras, yellow lines and wheelie bins melt away and, narrowing my eyes, I see again the grey streets of this perennially autumnal city thronged with bluestockings cycling to lectures at Girton. Ears! Hear again the lightly prancing hooves of the dairyman's float, with its rattling urn and ladle, as yonder Professor of Aramaic, sucking a eucalyptus lozenge, inclines his hoary head to examine the volumes on Gustave David's bookstall. Nose! Snuff the foggy air drifting up from the river, faintly permeated with horse dung and bonfire smoke from damp, distantly smouldering leaves.
But no, a blast of heat from the rear end of an arriving bus, stinking of hot metal and burning oil, dispels the dream. I stumble on a discarded mineral water bottle and rap music thuds from an aggressively driven car. I am once more on the pavements of the modern city. It is a comfort that all things must pass, and one day hi-vis jackets and mobile phones will have acquired a quaint period charm. Like this FS, seen in St Andrew's Street on Thursday 11th August 1977. Actually the town services seemed always to be handled by Bristol-engined FSs ...although this may be the false impression of an outsider. The two bicycles with baskets ...for carrying one's textbooks and lecture notes... propped against the pub on the opposite side of the street, are a nice Cambridge touch.