WHERE WAS I?
I had high hopes for this day.
I’d worked out a careful structure for it too. But at the first stop its strands have started to unravel.
We’re at a 17th-century pub, where two colleagues made a famous announcement over 70 years ago. Our next stop should be their former workplace, 80 yards southsoutheast of it, down a narrow lane. But my friend says he wants to head out of this city’s centre and honour its rock and pop stars instead.
“And leave this galaxy of great minds behind?”
I splutter. “There are too many bricks in these walls,” he says, enigmatically. Then he tells me three members of the same band went to schools nearby. What’s more, a former headmaster of one — now a sixth-form college nearly a mile and a half south-southeast of us — was the father of one of his favourite singers. We continue our argument while buying cakes in a market 150 yards north-northeast of the pub.
“Why are you so hopelessly devoted to history?” Friend moans. “And why are you so hopelessly devoted to that pair of Spandex trousers?”
I ask. “I am not sacrificing my day to one of your teenage crushes.”
Friend blushes. “How dare you!” he gasps. “You want to trade insults? Then why not blows? Come on — let’s get physical.”
Suddenly, in a place of such enlightenment it feels like I’m on the dark side of the moon.
“Sorry, Friend,” I hiss.
“Violence is not in my DNA.”
“But a love of cakes is, right?” he replies, before squashing his into my face.
Sean Newsom
THE QUESTIONS
1 What is the current name of the pub?
2 What was the headmaster’s surname?