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Ron Allison: To the High Street and beyond!
SOON after moving with my wife and son to Winchester 10 years ago (returning in my case), a neighbour told us that if we stood in the High Street at a weekend for even only an hour or two, we would see just about everyone we knew in the city.
Perhaps he thought we didn't have many friends, but assuming that wasn't his view, and allowing for some slight exaggeration, he wasn't totally off the mark.
The High Street is a proper town centre and, rather like the one-way road system, just about impossible to avoid.
Not that I would want to avoid it - the High Street that is - and this year it has certainly seen some remarkable events
First, at the end of January, the parade to honour some of the military personnel who had been serving in Iraq and Afghanistan drew many people into the city to show their appreciation.
A few weeks later others - perhaps some were there again - came to town to watch assorted ladies of assorted ages run up the High Street in their underwear, strictly, you will understand, in the cause of a Channel Four documentary programme.
Then, on Good Friday, in bitter cold and in total contrast, thousands were not only in the High Street and the Cathedral Close, but in many other parts of the city as well to watch - in fact to participate in - the memorable Winchester Passion, a truly remarkable community event.
Interviewed for BBC TV's South Today, one onlooker said that being in such a crowd watching such scenes had made her realise just what it must have been like to be in Jerusalem on the actual day of the Crucifixion. I don't think the organisers and all involved could have hoped for more than that!
Certainly, the whole splendid occasion concentrated my mind that evening on what happened 2,000 years ago.
My mind is also concentrated at these times on what, in comparison, is most definitely of little importance in the grand scheme of things, but which, nevertheless, matters to thousands of us in the High Street and beyond.
I refer to the county's two major football clubs, Southampton and Portsmouth.
As I write, the Saints are in a mess, both on and off the pitch. Relegation to the third tier of English football is a real possibility, and those of us who were rejoicing just five years ago when the club reached the FA Cup Final and finished eighth in the Premier League, are finding it hard to believe what is happening. And even harder to take!
Pompey, on the other hand, are poised, surely, to repeat their success of 1939 and take the FA Cup back to Fratton Park (In fact, because of the Second World War, they were cup holders until 1946!). I can't imagine they will ever have a better chance to win it again.
Nothing quite so divides some in Hampshire as these two clubs. So while caring more that Southampton should stay up, I nevertheless hope that Pompey win.
And I hope that my Saints' friends will still speak to me if they see me in the High Street!
3:09pm Wednesday 2nd April 2008
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