Spirit of place: Kidderminster

It is high time I gave my highly idiosyncratic impression of Kidderminster, a town I have somewhat mixed feelings about. It is historically best known for its connection to the carpet industry, & perhaps today best known as one end of the Severn Valley Railway. These two facts are not a great deal of use to a witch seeking to uncover the underlying *life* *soul*, whatever phrase you want to use, that comes out in the external manifestation of a place.
My mixed feelings are these: on the one hand, like everywhere with a Dudley postcode, it is indisputably a dump. Anyone who wants to dispute this had better not get me started on the ranks of dole scum & hatchet-faced 4o-year-old grandmothers that filled its streets today. On the other hand, I like Kidderminster itself, because it does seem to have a very individualistic spirit. The charity shops always have some really offbeat stuff, that indicate it's not a place that makes you IQ plummet on arriving there, but rather provides an enclave for people of weird interests.
I shall therefore comment on my pictures in the order that hopefully, blogger willing, they appear in this post. The first picture is what you unfortunately see when you go from the railway station to the town centre: how that underpass could have been seen as a good idea even when built is beyond me. Drear, drear, drear.
Rather than sensibly filling it in & making pedestrian crossings above ground, the powers that be have tried to prettify it with public art. The original tiles have been painted over in a publicly-funded display of nice inoffensive street art, which has since been graffitied over again by proper street art.
The disastrous street planning of modern times is mitigated somewhat by one of the first things you see on coming out of the underpass being a sort of dreamy clock tower thing. My blackberry didn't want to photograph it too well in the light but it has gorgeous gargoyles all over it. It's as camp as tits & so overdone that I would guess it has to be Victorian.
There's more stencil graffiti on the former magistrate's court, indicating that people of anarchistic beliefs frequent Kidderminster.
I did actually make a friend while there: I had chicken tikka kebab meat in a bun for lunch, & the lady in the final picture decided she'd walk along the wall & try to seduce me into giving her some. At least I imagine she's a lady, because of her patterning, she wouldn't actually show me her bum, but I recognise the sort of woman my mother used to warn me about when I see one. In fact she lived up to the warning: when it became apparent that the kebab meat had all gone, she went off to tart herself to someone else. Floozy.
So there you have it: my distinctly odd take on Kidderminster. Not many guide books would have the gall to sum it up as: graffiti, underpass, clock tower, & cat! Of course the reader will understand that I'm interpreting the cat (her name is probably Jezebel) as personifying the Spirit of Kidderminster...
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