Not BBQ, but Barbican..

I’m having a bit of a trip down memory lane. Principally, I think I was trying to recall the street where my maternal grandmother used to live in London (which I've now remembered and bookmarked in Google Maps).

I was born in Ipswich, Suffolk. My mum was born in London—I believe it was St Bartholomew’s, which technically makes her a Cockney, as that falls within the sound of the Bow Bells. My father, on the other hand, was from the East Midlands and was born in a castle (yes, really).

Eventually, we all ended up living in North East London for the majority of my childhood and teenage years. I remember the trips my mum used to take me on when I was a small lad to visit my grandmother, who lived in the Islington/Shoreditch area. She lived just off one of the streets branching from Whitecross Street, which regularly hosted the Whitecross Street Market. I remember the market so vividly. It was quite different back in the 1980s compared to now, but it never failed to intrigue me with what was being sold. We had family who operated stalls there, and we would occasionally catch up with them as part of our visits to see my nan.

There were various ways to get to my nan’s flat, but sometimes we would make our way through the Barbican estate—a large brutalist residential and arts complex. Even back then, I remember being in awe of the place—and I still am—because of its size, complexity, and strangely beautiful ugliness. No wonder it was used so effectively in the recent Star Wars TV series, Andor.

I’m also pretty sure—at least subconsciously—that the Barbican may have influenced my decision to go to university at the University of East Anglia (UEA), whose ziggurat-style brutalist architecture reminded me very much of the Barbican when I first saw it. Again, thanks to brutalism, during my time at UEA we had a Doctor Who spin-off filmed there (which interestingly introduced the world to Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, the Brigadier’s daughter). Walking along those walkways always felt as if you were in some 1970s sci-fi series, even if you were just going to do the laundry.

I’ve been to the Barbican a few times since—my father has taken me to see a show or two, and I’ve also been there a couple of times with a previous girlfriend back in the late 1990s. I haven’t been since—maybe I should. Sadly, my nan and mum are no longer with us, and I miss them a great deal. But I am incredibly grateful to them for the wonderful memories I had growing up. I could write an entire blog on the adventures we had down at our caravan in Canvey Island, for example. Those were extremely happy times for me.

However, I am also acutely aware of just how much I don’t know about both my maternal and paternal families—and that’s even with my father (and uncle) doing a substantial amount of family history. For example, I have some German ancestry on my father’s side, but there is still much more to discover.