I have taken to rereading  Orwells Essays.

 3 February 1936. The Road to Wigan Pier Diary.

“Walked round Hanley and part of Burslem…about the most dreadful places I have seen. Labyrinths of tiny blackened houses among them pot banks like monstrous burgundy bottles half buried in the soil, belching forth smoke. Signs of poverty everywhere and very poor shops…”

Thirty years later as a student at nearby Keele I was there. The Potteries were no longer belching smoke but poverty was still in the air,the swinging sixties hadn’t got that far. Stanley Mathews (aged 50)was playing his last games for Stoke. There was a small Polish  shop to cater for the miners in the local pits. At the chippy to get more than a mouthful I always asked for double fish.

 One rag week  selling our floppy record I got talking. Lovely lady. Wanted to buy one but hadn’t a record player(1966!). Surely a neighbour has. She scratched her head. No I don’t think so but I think there is one in the next road. Many of the tiny blackened, two up two down houses still had outside loos and no hot water. Enterprising students bought one for £300 got a modernising council grant and on graduating sold at a handsome profit.

In my last year I shared a house in Hanley. Syd (RIP),Brian who has dedicated his life to the mirage of  revolution and Huw now in Edinburgh and who isn’t interested. I will always remember we four and Ken Swift drinking in a canal pub in Burslem. Girl friend, a Keele grad, in Hartshill.

I share a birthday with George Orwell,25 June. And a trip to Hanley. The past is not even past.