In search of lost time in East Oxford

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 When the writer Marcel Proust ate a madeleine as an adult and ducked it in his tea, suddenly a whole moment of his childhood came back. Apparently it wasn’t a madeleine in the first drafts of his BIG novel (In Search of Lost Time), but toasted bread. Never mind, the madeleine and/or the bread did the job, the past came rushing back as if it were in the present.

There was a bit of that when J. and I went to hear Sharron Kraus at the Port Mahon last Tuesday. I say I went to hear Sharron but there were two other set of musicians there I had not hear before: Sara Wolff and Helen Pearson and I loved listening to them all. A great evening of lovely music organised by Divine Schism.

 


But yes, there was definitely something spooky going on yesterday. 

Because I was quite early coming to town from Abingdon, I decided to walk all the way down the High street from the centre and as I approached Magdalen College, and saw how many people were squeezed on the pavement, I remembered that it was worse before, that in fact, the pavement alongside Magdalen College is wider now, and suddenly I saw the pavement, and my friend S. and I walking back to East Oxford one late evening when it was pouring down with rain and how skilled we were still, holding our fags in our cupped hands so that they would survive the rain. It lasted three seconds that image and that sensation, but despite the sun, I briefly checked the top of my head to make sure it was dry. And no, I checked my hand, I did not have a fag, I vape now.

After meeting J. in the pub,  we sat on the side of the room and the sound engineer – whom we could only see from the back – looked like J. when she was a student: tall and slim and with short hair and tiny triangular hearing, as if we had taken a trip into the past. Then Sharron, just before singing, spoke about the same subject of diving back into the past. She has now returned to live in Oxford and finds, here and there, connections with the past.

And I am also, of course, racking my brain to writing about the Oxford of the past for my dissertation and hopefully something to publish (it's good to dream, isn't it?).

But, as J. noticed as well, there are still pockets of the old Oxford to be found and yesterday, the Port Mahon was one of them... it reminded me of the North Gate Hall and its Catweazle evening where everyone, professional or amateurs was welcome to sing or read a few poems or whatever. What a great place that was, and what a great place that is, as it has moved into the East Oxford Community Centre.

Many other places have disappeared and the place is becoming gentrified, but still, it is wonderful to see that some good things from the past have stayed: 

The Magic Cafe, 

the East Oxford Community Centre,

The Mill 

Restore at Manzil Way Gardens

 the Port Mahon... and I hope I will keep adding here

 ( ...there were also crap things from the past, I remember needles lying on the Cowley road, near the graveyard past Leopold street, that wasn't great, was it?)

 

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