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Flesh and Blood is set in a warped, re-drawn version
of the town where I spent the first 18 years of my life. So:
my home town (or rather, a warped, re-edited version of it)
on an autumn day...
"Matt was lying face down on the beach again. Had he
escaped? Had he broken free from this awful place?"
A seaside shelter. The graffiti says: "Win the rat race
+ youre still a rat." There's some much ruder graffiti
just out of view.
Bathside is the name of the town in Flesh and Blood.
It's not the name of the town where I grew up. So why's there
a map of Bathside? Strange place...
Award-winning beach. Aren't they all?
...and the signs could do with restoring now.
"They stopped at the railing, above where the grassy
cliff tumbled gently down to the Promenade."
Is this Aunt Carol's house? She certainly lives somewhere
very like this.
"He paused at the memorial. He had to work out how he
was going to do this. Death might have lost meaning here,
but pain had not."
Such an attractive place to stay! There are some superb buildings here, but many aren't being looked after these days.
"There was a taxi office just across the street from
Bathside station. Matt waited outside with the bags while
his mother went in and arranged a ride."
The thriving town-centre. Note the funeral parlour on the
left. Flesh and Blood opens with a funeral. Isn't that cheerful?
Perhaps now you can see why I left when I reached eighteen.
Don't get the wrong impression, though. I love seaside towns
in the off-season: for me these places are at their best in
mid-January, with the wind howling in off the sea and the
rain drizzling down. In the Yorkshire Dales they have Herriot
country; in the north-east there's Catherine Cookson country
- if ever there's a Gifford country it'll be an east coast
town and you'll only ever be allowed to visit in mid-winter.
And you'll have to watch out for the vampires, and the mad
relatives, of course.
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