Damn. Missed Him.

Many was the time I went into the old Florence Nightingale after a checkup at Jimmies.
I'd pop in and have a pint or two of Marstons Pedigree and the cook would ask me how I was going.
This used to be my neighbourhood.
I was known.
The people were sometimes great.
Sometimes not so great.
Sometimes they'd chase the coppers off.
Sometimes you'd see the trail of nose-blood on the pavements in the morning after somebody got a slap.
Then the council decided to implement a policy.
Like ice in the Sun, the rough and tumble community dissolved.
Thing is, in the bad old days, if you were local they left you alone.
Not on their own doorstep, so to speak.
God help anybody who started on a pensioner. That was the only time the police got co-operation.
We used to have drugged up kids.
Now we've got bloody life-forms that should be in Rampton.
I've left.
But I still remember a couple of addresses.