Some Peculiarities of Grimsby

 It’s been just over a year since I moved into my Grimsby house, now much more homely than it was then. It’s also almost two years since I moved into this area, and I thought I’d write some impressions of it.

Before I moved away from Willesden Green in London, I wrote a piece about some of the oddities of that place and I thought I’d write about some of the oddities of this one.

Fire

I’ve never lived in a place where so many of the places had been set fire to. From my position on my cosy armchair, I could walk to a burnt down Methodist Church and two burnt down pubs. There are frequent house fires and the fire engine frequently comes to my local park to put out plastic wheely bins set on fire. 

I’m not sure why this is. It’s certainly true that people seem to enjoy smashing windows in up north - it’s something that’s always struck me, yet the element of fire seems particularly local. Perhaps its because so many buildings are simply left alone, perhaps it’s the Viking past, fiery boat burials and all that.

Rooftop “Seiges”

Even the local people note that it’s a peculiarly Grimsby thing for people being arrested to climb onto their roof and wait. They don’t have guns, this isn’t the US, they just go up there until they come down. In the time I’ve lived here, this has happened three times but it’s a bit of a feature. I’m not sure why they do it, I suppose it’s to be awkward.

Balaclavas on Head-rests

This could be a popular thing in other places, but I’ve never seen it anywhere else and I see it in at least one car or van on every road here. People put ski-masks, balaclavas, sometimes masks on the head-rests on the front seat of their cars. At a glance, it looks like dodgy people are sitting in the car.

I heard this was a security measure, but it’s quite an easy one to see through. It might look like someone threatening is sitting in the chair at a glance, but a second glance shows it to be what it is. It could be a prank, a joke, a way of personalising a car. 

On a related note, there are plaques on certain houses advertising that they are paid up to a number of different private security firms. The headquarters of one is a few roads up. They have a car that sort of looks like a police car, but a bit more heavy duty. I’ve not heard of what these companies actually do, or what they could prevent. I imagine they have no real authority to do very much. It’s something else I find quite perplexing. 

(Flags)

Since I’ve moved here, flags have become a thing throughout the country, with various losers tying English flags (and occasionally Danish) to lampposts and painting them on roundabouts. Before this was a general thing across the country, flags were already a big thing round here. Especially towards Cleethorpes, there are many houses with flagpoles. They fly the English and British flags, but many of them also fly the Lincolnshire flag. Again, in all the various places I’ve lived around the country, they’ve never flown their own flags.

This list looks pretty negative, it would imply a people fond of setting things on fire, climbing their roofs and paranoid of crime, yet I like it here. I feel at home walking the streets, I’ve found a brilliant community at the Caxton Theatre (where I’ll be going at the end of this week for a poetry night) and I’ve create a brilliant haven in this little house of mine. It’s the last place I thought I’d end up, but I’m happy I’ve washed up here.