Wednesday 9 April 2014

The Doctor Has Landed!

 
In a fast and ever changing world, it's good to have some things that are routine, and never change. Apart from the sunshine coming through the window, I could take this photo every morning, and it would look pretty much the same, including Hobie.
 
I don't have an alarm clock, and yet every morning at exactly six o' clock, I wake up and head downstairs. Every morning, Hobie is at the bottom, and starts to howl to be fed, even though on most occasions both cats still have some food in their bowl. He eats while I make a pot of tea, and then as I carry my first brew of the morning to the living room, he is at the door waiting to be let in, every morning. We take up our repective places, me on the settee to check the internet, and him at the window looking out on the world. Misty has her own routine, and involves sleeping when she isn't eating, and can be found most mornings asleep on Celias bed. I don't know if it's the same for Hobie, but if this routine during the working week is interrupted in any way, I become quite unsettled. It's a sort of mental buffer between the peace of sleep, and the hard slog ahead.
 
 
Outside these four walls, everything is changing. I was born and raised in Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, in a seaside hotel that my parents owned (a brief story of our return is mentioned in this post). Back then I used to make the short walk with my brother up to the main road, to catch the number 23 bus to school some miles away. I shudder to think it was forty three years ago now. Boscombe was a good place then, full of small shops. In the arcade, just behind the police box, I remember mum taking me for banana milkshakes in the cafe there. Everything was decent, safe, and as it should be. Over the years though, Boscombe has changed. It became the centre for prostitution, then numerous drunks filled the streets. Drugs soon became an issue, as most of the beautiful victorian terraced houses were converted into bedsits. During the past forty years, the place became quite dangerous. The migrating homeless soon saw a sunny beach resort, with the added bonus of good dealer contacts for their smack etc, and off licences offered cheap alcohol, making the problem worse. The local council have, over the last five years, been attempting to turn things around however, with the renovation of public spaces, but it's having little effect on the underlying problem. It's just providing the prostitutes, homeless, alcoholics, and druggies with a nicer place to stay. There is also a growing contingency from eastern Europe, which although some are genuinely attempting to start businesses and merge with the local community in a very real way, most are benefit migrants, coming to the UK for a standard of living that doesn't include work, but does include us the taxpayer allowing them to live comfortably. And so it is, that these have also started to become part of the problem. Some of my work is along the seafront at Boscombe, and as such I go into town to grab some lunch on a regular basis, and so see changes each time. Sometimes I grab a coffee at the International Cafe, run by a lovely guy called Fauzi, who has an ongoing problem with drug dealers toting their wares outside his, and all of the other businesses trying to make a go of it.
So, in light of all of that, the council in all of their wisdom have come up with the latest in their line of defence, an old fashioned police box, one of only two in the country. There used to be hundreds dotted about, and were made more famous by the Dr Who series. This one is to be permanently manned by two officers during the day, in the hope that it will help to deter the shadier element of society. A telephone is attached to it for 'out of hours' problems. I think it will just get sprayed with graffiti during the night, but we will see.

 
TTFN



13 comments:

  1. Hey I like the police box. I bet that puts the fear of god up the malefactors.
    It ought tobe manned twenty four hours a day.

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    1. It's pretty nifty isn't it Adrian, solid steel as well. It does need to be manned 24/7 to have any real impact on the neighbourhood.

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    2. Solid steel eh!! Some Pikie will have it away probably with the police in situ. Put it all down to progress or is that regress??

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  2. I hope this helps the situation and that Boscombe becomes a delightful place to live and visit once again.

    I was relieved to realize that the dr. didn't land for any of you at your home.

    Have a good rest of the week ~ FlowerLady

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    1. Hi Lorraine,
      Unfortunately Boscombe needs much more than a couple of permanent police officers. One can always hope though eh?

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  3. It seems to be a bigger problem than before when the bad, who want to make a lot of money for very little work, want to sit up in front of establishment. Colorado deciding to legalize pot has spread problems throughout a large circle of all the states around it. And the state government is the bad in this case as they are raising taxes in gangbusters with a smile on their faces.

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    1. Too many wrong ideas being implemented, for all of the wrong reasons LD

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  4. Most seaside towns have declined into a run down negative spiral... We have prestatyn here as well as the awful Rhyl......
    Some places still survive.....chris' hometown of Broadstairs seems to have evolved nicely.

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    1. Hi John,
      All too often the bad element are drawn to a life by the seaside. Our council are already drawing up measures to counter the travellers that will be heading our way.

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  5. It’s a pity when things change for the worst.

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  6. Pleased to learn that there is to be a heightened police presence as my little girl lives just a sneeze away, down the road in Pokesdown! When she was flat hunting, a few years ago, I spotted some rather nice houses in certain streets and she told me that they were absolute no-go areas for the reasons that you've stated. (They have an alarm system in the flat and a big lock on the bike shed in the garden. The previous bikes were stolen. It's certainly not always a pleasant world.)

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    1. Hi Rosemary,
      What a small world it is. I go through Pokesdown most days, and my brother lives there. There are indeed some beautiful houses in Boscombe, and the flats that they are converted into would be really lovely if they weren't housing such an element. Indeed, we have both looked at several ourselves in the past.

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