Durham. Always Durham.

What is it about Durham?

It certainly isn’t the 106 steps up to my room in Durham Castle, where I’ve always wanted to stay but could never get in (yay fall sabbatical!). It’s 106 steps down too.

It isn’t a connection with H.G. Wells. Despite the exhibit at the Palace Green Library in 2017, there is no connection between Durham and H.G. Wells, William Briggs, or anything else I’m working on. (That exhibit was created by Simon James of Durham University. He is an expert on Wells as a literary giant, but I cannot conceive of any justification that I could use to contact him.)

It’s not that Bill Bryson, an American writer, fell in the love with the place, made his home here, and even became chancellor of Durham University. I’m a fan, but not that big a fan.

So that’s not it.

Maybe it’s the look of the place, with the old town perched on a hill between two rivers, providing stunning views:

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Maybe it’s the cathedral, burial place of St Cuthbert, comforting in its pre-Gothic design, and home to a cozy evensong in the choir stalls.

Maybe it’s the fact that there was a fulling mill here. In fact, there were two. The weirs on the river are because of them. One of them was in a building that used to be an archaeological museum, and is now used to store objects. It’s on the river path, which you can walk, as I’ve done many times.

Maybe it’s the way I can go into The People’s Bookshop, as I chanced to do today, and spend an hour chatting with the seller about UK and American politics, H.G. Wells, and what the future holds.

Or that the Oxfam bookshop has the best selection in town. Or that the food here is excellent, with the variety one expects in a college town. Or that it has so many secrets, and boasts the third university in the country after Oxford and Cambridge. Or that there’s such a mix here of working class and university people. Or the way everyone asks if you’re alright. Or the way I can joke around, because they do too. Or the conversations I’ve overheard on buses and in cafes. The one where the kids talked about how they were afraid to come to America because of guns, or the one where the man on a new date with a woman was talking about whether he could discuss his past or not, or the many I’ve heard of older couples just sitting in the front window up top on the bus and talking about whatever they see:

“That’s a nice house, isn’t it?’

“Yes. Didn’t Mary have a house like that?”

“In Sunderland, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so. Only hers was yellow.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

“It would be a lot of upkeep, though, wouldn’t it?”

Or the fact that the community theatre has the chutzpah to do Alan Bennett. (Yes, of course I went.)

Whatever it is, I come back.

 

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