This is another shot from my Chorlton photo diary. We wandered round the village on Sunday, pretending it’s spring and loving the winter sun because it’s Britain and we all know this might actually count as summer this year. It’s so close to the city, yet it feels like the country. I’m beginning to lose my urban headache and feel the peace settling around me.
Finally got round to exploring my new neighbourhood. Wore my ‘fur’ to the Unicorn vegetarian whole food store… got some looks. Oops. They have 50 different types of lentil… Found a trippy little 70s boutique and thought I was in San Francisco for a minute. Sundried bananas and beetroot juice for lunch! Totally hippy. Chorltonville looks more like the Cheshire stockbroker belt than Manchester…
It’s with a heavy heart that I pack 13 years of my life into boxes ready to move on to pastures new. I’ll miss my bohemian loft, having lived in the Northern Quarter since I moved back to England from Amsterdam in 2000. Our landlord failed to extend his lease and so we all knot our spotted hankies and wander off into the wide blue yonder. ‘Change, my dear, and not a moment too soon,’ as The Doctor says while regenerating in a halo of golden light, and emerging with a completely new appearance. I’m thinking of it as regeneration…
It’s funny going back to your place of birth, secretly hoping that it still looks like the place you left behind, and your house hasn’t been replaced by a Tesco or Starbucks. I was relieved to see that nothing much had changed when I returned to Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire after more than thirty years. Give or take the odd PVC window frame, and a rash of Ground Forced gardens, it was exactly how I remembered it. I have a lot of happy, hazy memories of growing up here, and we moved away ‘up north’ when I was eight. Relocating to Cheshire was like a cold shower compared to this sleepy, sunny market town in the Home Counties. We went from Cider With Rosie to Wuthering Heights on a one-way ticket. This short film is a tour of my childhood…
Press Quality for HD and watch in fullscreen.
The video features the track Since I left You by The Avalanches, my all time favourite song, which samples old soul band The Main Attraction and Rose Royce, amongst others. It’s a burst of sunshine, and makes me happy every time I hear it.
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© My artwork, photography and music are copyright Mark Wallis 2015
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