I had reason to be at The Mall in West Heidelberg yesterday. A place I haven't been since about 1985.
I stepped out of my car and as I took my first steps towards Cambridge Arcade I felt my scalp tingle and every hair on my body stand on end.
I could hear Non's Italian heeled shoes clip clopping beside me and I could smell her sickly sweet perfume. Max Bygraves was singing somewhere in the distance. Non's knitting was spilling out of the hessian bag I was carrying for her. I smiled knowing that she'd not be wanting to waste her 15 minute tea break just sitting in the tea room and chatting to the storeman.
I notice that the heavy steel grate that we'd struggled with had long been replaced but the terrazzo stairs are still there and I gasp...remembering how strangely scared I felt when I had to take those stairs alone.
I leave Non in the arcade and take the front entrance into the store. I feel tears welling in my eyes and a lump rising in my throat. Surely the store was bigger than this. It's a discount store now. Gone are the bays for holding yarn and the wall that divided the shop front from the "warehouse". There's been no refit though. The same peg board lines the wall where we used to keep the laybys and the floor and wall paint remain as they were.
As I walk toward the back of the store I spy the door to the tea room and a faint waft of International Roast coffee fills the air.
The shop which now occupies the space at the end of Cambridge Arcade is fittingly called The Family Store.
And this morning I went back to snap myself some memory anchors.