Ever Been To East Grinstead
I was in a rush and was halfway down the street before I realised, I didn’t have sunnies, so I went back for them, and the prescription pair as well. If it is sunny when the football is on, I’ll need them. And so, as I’m crossing the railway over the footbridge, I can see my planned bus leaving the bus station. It’s half an hour until the next one. Time for brekkie. Only I’m five minutes too late for Maccy D’s breakfast. You can tell by the swarms of people in there getting burgers. No one needs a Maccy D’s burger at five past eleven. They need to do their breakfast stuff until at least midday, if not all day. Although all day might not be good for me, seeing as their breakfast stuff is the only thing I like from them, I would be there all the time and be back up to the size of a house.
Anyway, I get a coffee and sit at the bus stop. I have my barriers up. Headphones in and sunnies on. Anything to stop people trying to interact with me. Only for a guy to sit by me. He’s humming away at a volume I can hear over my music and rocking away from side-to-side dancing away to the tune in his head. Others are looking at him, but I’m ignoring it. But then there is another guy now stood to the other side of me trying to talk to me, and he joins in with the side-to-side rocking and then starts waving to people on buses going past before wandering off down the row of bus stops. It is only when someone goes chasing after him I realise they are on a day trip out with carers, and I feel a little bit guilty about blanking them. But to be fair I blank everyone so there is no prejudice involved.
Oh, and it was raining, so the sunnies are seeming a bit surplus to requirements.
The bus turns up and a sudden swarm of queue-jumping pricks barge past and onto the bus ignoring those who had been queuing for twenty minutes. There may be a lot less of me than there used to be, but I’m still not fucking invisible. And to top it off they jam into all the decent leg room seats.
I haven’t been on the bus to East Grinstead for a while and so it is a bit of a surprise when it gets to the roundabout at the Copthorne hotel and goes back on itself towards the motorway as if heading back to Crawley. It isn’t though, it is going through the new housing estate. I’ve not had a wander around here yet, but it’s a lot bigger than I’d realised, and you can get all the way through it to then rejoin the usual route through Copthorne as if coming from Horley.
I am heading to East Grinstead to watch Crawley Town’s second preseason friendly, the last of the six they are playing that I’m going to be able to get to. The three other midweek games are too far to get to on time on a workday evening, and the only home (and weekend) game, against Crystal Palace, is a ridiculous 12:30 kick off. Which as it is a friendly and clashes with my writing group, means the writing group wins. It will be a tougher choice once the proper season starts. It’s a battle of things important to me which is going to happen more often during the season now that Sky Sports is on the scene fucking up kick off times. I understand it brings in money for the club, but as usual, no one gives a shit about the fans. Shifting game start times (and days) willy nilly. Making travel more difficult. Just leave them at 3pm on a Saturday. Crawley have a few televised games early in the season. I would love to have a big banner screaming FUCK SKY SPORTS to unfurl at those games. But I suspect that would just get me banned, something I definitely don’t want to be.
It is early for me to be heading to East Grinstead for a 3pm kick off, but I’m going to take the opportunity to have a wander around the town with camera in hand. There are charity shops to be browsed, and lovely old buildings to be photographed, and some brunch to be had now. Visit the church, and get to the ground early and try and do a spot of writing, and kick start myself out of this writing funk I find myself going through. And then enjoy (if that’s the right word) the football.
Looking back out of the window, and it’s funny as I don’t remember the bus route being such a magical mystery tour as it is now. Perhaps I never paid as much attention to it before.
I was thwarted from visiting the church as one wedding had only recently finished and confetti was swirling around. And a second wedding was about to begin. Latecomers were desperately rushing to get into the church before the bride arrived in one of the two trimmed up vintage 1920s rollers I’d seen pass me going up the High Street.
Whilst taking photos on the High Street some old boy had started to speak to me (sunnies were hiding from the attempts at rain and headphones were away as I was having a catarrh build up issue) as he saw I was taking pictures. He was telling me that the High Street is the longest continuous stretch of joined medieval buildings anywhere in the country.
Not far along it is an independent book shop, and a young author was outside with their debut book, signing copies.
I can’t resist and buy a copy. It will go on the to read pile which isn’t getting any smaller, especially with a couple of non-fiction titles picked up from charity shops. Oh and the few local guides picked up from the museum.
Which I found more by accident than design and had a look around. I was surprised at how small it is, and over fifty percent of it is to the Guinea Pig Club and the pioneering plastic surgery for burns victims of World War II. Considering the range of medieval buildings in the town, the host of historic places in and around the town, you would expect them to be bigger and for it to be better.
East Court was busy as well when I got there. One of the wedding parties had obviously decamped there for the reception, and so the Meridian line was off limits.
The wander down to the ground wasn’t as far as damn Google maps made it out to be. East Grinstead Town FC have the nickname of the wasps. And they certainly try to live up to that. There is black and yellow everywhere. Wiz Khalifa’s got nothing on this place.
After the game I head back towards the train station and the bus stops there, but the sun has finally come out and my legs are feeling good, so I decide to walk back to Crawley using the Worth Way. Only to make a wrong turn before I’ve really started and go down the wrong side of the station car park, only realising the error when I come out on a road and can see the imposing viaduct.
I find my way back to the Worth Way and follow the former train tracks as much as it is possible to.
It’s funny, I’ve done this walk several times, but never in this direction, and when I pop out in Crawley Down and have to navigate the streets of the estate built after the passing of the railway line, I’m relying on my own inherent sense of direction, which is better than the blue direction signs which local wags have been twisting in misleading directions.
The train line was pretty much flat back in the day, it’s interesting to see how much the surrounding countryside undulates along the route. It doesn’t seem very far between there being a towering bridge far over my head to the point where I’m up on a bridge far above the road going underneath it. There may be a Station Road in Crawley Down, but there is no sign of the station anymore.
But at Rowfant, the station building is still there, if overgrown and deserted now. Then I am in Worth, or what is left of the village. The more modern streets are still under a constant battle where the new neighbourhood names are stickered over with Worth signs, and then they are coloured in, so no name is on them.
I miss the last couple of hundred yards of the Worth Way as I head down the Bower and follow the path to take me under the railway and through Furness Green and the more direct route back to Southgate. The sun is retreating, and I make it home just in time for dinner and to rest weary legs.
For other stories of wandering around this year, check out my list
If you liked this post, follow me or get on my email list for future posts. Some may even be more enjoyable than this one.
You can find articles I have already published here.
And feel free to clap (any will do), or highlight (pick something at random), or comment (any old gobbledygook will do), or best yet all three.
After years of prevaricating, I have finally gotten around to self-publishing some books. I now have three books available. The first is the novel “Where The Lights Shine Brightest”, this is available on Amazon at
Next up is a collection of drabbles, three hundred and sixty six of the little hundred word stories, under the title of “A Drabble A Day Keeps The Psychoanalyst Away”, this is available on Amazon at
Finally, there is an autobiographical work, released under my alter ego of Kevin Rodriguez-Sanchez, which covers a two year period in the early noughties when I lived in Manchester — “Five Go Mad In Manchester”. Again, this is available on Amazon at
They are all available as paperback or eBook. And if you have Kindle Unlimited then they are available on there to read whenever. Please buy / read / leave reviews.
