Mentioned Part 31

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 22/10/2001

"No disrespect to the likes of Grimsby..."

Knowhere Guide to Grimsby

From www.knowhere.co.uk

Hook-up Spot (That hallowed spot where everyone hangs around with their mates dreaming of the time when they can get into the pubs or clubs -- a bench, a corner: you name it.)

• Everyone hangs around a corner shop called Star and they also get pissed! And drive around like maniacs. Any place except Nunny.
• I am from Keelby, and have not been there for about 10 years now, but I in fact used to sit with various friends on the wall outside the Tateshopper. If you got to sit on this wall you were hard. Like sitting on the back seat of the school bus. I wasn't hard for too long though because I was skinny and goofy and didn't have a 'Capital Collection' jersey. Another good spot was the church wall. There wasn't much to do in those days, probably still isn't although I hear they have a cyber-cafe now.
• The barge is where all the grebos hang out!
• Quantok Park, the Spinny on the Grange, outside every single Spar but Cambridge Road and outside the one next to Grimsby College
• The barracks behind scaffa baths - do any of you ever remember hanging out there in the early 80's?
• On the benches outside the barge is the best place to sample a good cross-section of the local community: in-breeders, drunks, salty sea dogs, skate punx, weasel, Gy yoof young mums, fag cadgers, creazee wackee students, gangs of evil drunken drug addled lecherous twisted teenagers who want to mug you for their next fix.....
• Don't forget to tell about the Bronx - the NUNSTHORPE ESTATE WHERE THE WORLDS FAMOUS DRUG DEALERS ARE.
• The courts......A couple of sets of steps a nice blocky thing for board sliding and a bigger set of steps (mmmmm kickflip). Watch out for the local drunk though (Barker is to be feared not for his fighting abilities but his deadly tongue and feet fetish). The spot is more or less in the town centre, and there are v. rarely security guards present! The Barge (local alternative pub with great punk / metal dukebox) is only a 3 minute walk!!!! Rock n' Roll!
• The sea front, anywhere with a car park in New Waltham, the meggies car park near to the Greenwich Meridian Line. Oh yeah the car park near to the Yacht Club boat house.
• Freshney Place. A place for kids under 16 to annoy and basically try and get banned from...aka Little Joe Winnings.
• Ainslee street park (ex-cemetary) only 2 minutes from town centre, very dark for the ugly goth bird you pulled in Gullies.
• ANYWHERE in Waltham or New Waltham - masses of 14-year olds walking up and down the streets...
• The witches circle in Weelsby Woods.
• Peoples Park is a great spot if you're underage and want to get pissed! There is a great pond to go paddling in on those warm summer nights. Warning: don't take your car on there because the "people parkers" will demolish it and put it in the pond! Cider is a speciality!!!!!!!
• If you're 17 and just passed your driving test piss out of Grimsby and do some 'boy racing' in your Nova (sorry P.J Lambett) in Cleethorpes where you cannot fail to pull a Grimsby or Cleethorpes 16 years old slapper. Who will do the bis on the back seat of your car.
• Franklin College - hell on earth but it makes the crap clubs and dodgy pubs all the better
• Everyone seems to congregate around the bus station with babies in tow.
• The benches outside The Barge. Come on, you all know you did when you were younger.
• The subway opposite St. James church is an ideal place to sit with a bottle of sherry and watch the world go by. Or if you're feeling classy, why not crack open a can of 'BARNSTORMER' cider in Briggagate Bus station, and help people with their luggage off the bus?
• The Memorial Cross outside Littlecoats School, fond memories of my early teens, drinking special red cider, fighting, shagging, them were the days!!
• Outside the Spar shop in Scartho Village, eating greasy yellow chips from Wongy's...oops, sorry the Bamboo takeaway!
• Grimsby Leisure Centre while at the "disco".
• Ere, well people tend to meet in the Wheatsheaf before deciding what dance club to go to. You don't even have to buy a drink.

Spotted by Jonathan Parkes.

Sam North

The British crime writer describes his formative years:

It is all Raymond Chandler’s fault anyway. I could have been happy with anything, but at an early age I discovered Chandlerville - Los Angeles of the late thirties and forties and it didn’t let go. I looked about me in my scruffy industrial town of Grimsby and it didn’t take much imagination to know that no story ever worth telling would happen here and it if did, well who the hell cared. No one. No Grimsby detective was going to beat down the door of a glamorous society dame in my town and show her dirty pictures and demand money. (There would need to be society for a start).

Sure crime happened, murders happened, there were rich and poor, but Grimsby was, well Grimsby and there is nothing romantic, nothing exciting, nothing but the void and stench of the Pyewipe factory that soaked the town in an acrid smell that dissolved the paint off cars and altered the genetic make-up of subsequent generations. (The evidence is there for all to see). One heard about corruption in the council, scandals about whose parents were sleeping with who and once I knew someone who had shot their husband dead, but it wasn’t Los Angeles and therefore it didn't count. No one I ever saw came close to looking like a Hollywood starlet and British cops didn’t flash guns and if there was such a thing as a Private Eye, he’d turn out to be as exciting as the man from the Pru.

Spotted by Jonathan Parkes.

If you see a "mention" mail them to rob@grimsbyfans.com and we'll put them up here.

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