Return to Blandford Forum
Blandford Forum
Dorset, England
September 2010
It was September 2010 when I returned to Blandford. I hadn't been there, or even anywhere near Dorset, since 1987.
We drove all the way down from York (a huge journey - passing bustling Birmingham and Bristol along the motorway) - I was attending an uncle's wedding in Abbotsbury and during the week there just had to make an excursion to my old school.
I drove to the school, now with my wife and daughter. I wanted to show them where I had gone to school many years ago.
I drove apprehensively through Blandford Forum, up the hill and along Milldown Road, eventually arriving at the school car park. My heart beat faster.
I got out of the car. Dumbfounded. Where was the school? Or what had they done to it? It had all been amalgamated into one building. Or something like that.
I felt like the main character in the TV film 'Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol' (1972) - about a soldier returning from Vietnam, where he was a POW, who finds his home town missing.
It was eerie. And quiet. Everyone had gone home.
That wasn't Blandford Upper School. No, my old school had disappeared forever.
Dorset, England
September 2010
It was September 2010 when I returned to Blandford. I hadn't been there, or even anywhere near Dorset, since 1987.
We drove all the way down from York (a huge journey - passing bustling Birmingham and Bristol along the motorway) - I was attending an uncle's wedding in Abbotsbury and during the week there just had to make an excursion to my old school.
I drove to the school, now with my wife and daughter. I wanted to show them where I had gone to school many years ago.
I drove apprehensively through Blandford Forum, up the hill and along Milldown Road, eventually arriving at the school car park. My heart beat faster.
I got out of the car. Dumbfounded. Where was the school? Or what had they done to it? It had all been amalgamated into one building. Or something like that.
I felt like the main character in the TV film 'Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol' (1972) - about a soldier returning from Vietnam, where he was a POW, who finds his home town missing.
It was eerie. And quiet. Everyone had gone home.
That wasn't Blandford Upper School. No, my old school had disappeared forever.
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