My Little Piece of Oldton

Here’s my little piece of Oldton.

I never actually lived in Oldton, but I went to the primary school there, because that’s where my Dad taught. I don’t remember the town very well, but I remember the school.

I played in the orchestra. One day an artist turned up and photographed us. About a month later she presented the school with a mosaic. That’s me, the budding violinist, commemorated in ceramics. Somehow it was rescued from the wreckage of Oldton Primary School, and now languishes in my parents’ garden, leaning up against the garage wall, a plaintive memorial to the musician I never became.

As for idyllic Oldton? Eden would be a place where a child has no worries. Not what I remember.

Don’t stand out. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t show off.

Walking down the street or riding a bus, it’s hard to hide a violin. It’s difficult to pretend it’s not there, or that it’s just an innocent little case - a brief case, a vanity case. It’s a violin, everybody can tell.

Don’t be different. Don’t be deep. Don’t be questioning. Don’t be clever.

Once I left my violin on the bus, accidentally. After school my mother made me ring up lost property. I was terrified, I wasn’t used to telephones. The violin came back.

Eden was a place I might have reached through music. But I lost Eden when I lost music. When music was bullied out of me.

Don’t be imaginative. Don’t be unique. Don’t be transported to other worlds.

Don’t stop paying attention to the here-and-now for one single second or else… Or else we’ll snigger behind your back, we’ll fall out with you, we’ll smash your face in given half the chance. Don’t make a sound. Don’t. Just don’t.

Christine Wilks