A shortish walk (the weekend is my time for pre-breakfast domestic stuff) took me out into the rain and the meeting of the trickle of students returning home after the clubs. Predominantly un-coated, some skittered through the mizzly drizzle shouting, jostling while others just stood in it, seemingly unperturbed by the wet. A group of girls (and possibly one boy – who knows) stood outside Barclays talking and laughing. ‘She liked you from step one’, one of them was saying, which was met by a burst of laughter.
I had a quick look at North Prom. There’s much damage. A brick flower bed is demolished, some stone tiles outside the bandstand have been lifted up, some of the steps outside the hotels on the front have been chipped but worst of all is the shelter. It has been blown through, right through. He is truly homeless now. I hope he wasn’t there when the storm struck, he said this morning when I told him what I’d seen. No, surely not, I said. Was he?
Heading home I met another glut of the homeward-bounders, a group of maybe seven lads and one girl. They split in to two groups with the girl and three of the boys crossing the road. A robust figure in a fake fur bomber jacket, with fulsome legs encased in knee-high transparent socks, the girl began shouting out the names of the boys on the other side of the road and pointing at them as she did so. ‘Will, Elliot,’ she said, ‘Nick and…. and Leon.’ The name was followed by a great roar of recognition from her, to which she added, more softly, ‘my Leon’.
