The Good Old Days

[Shindig]

Y'know, let's reminisce about shit. We're all old men now and ramble about how things used to be. My first thing to show you guys would be what it was like to work in this building.



We moved out a few years back because of redevelopment plans. We moved to a smaller, more boring building that holds no mysteries. Milburngate House, however, was a labyrinth. There was about six floors of 'stuff' and 'nothing' and I worked on two of them across two different contracts. There's no need for job specifics here. The building's the more interesting part. It had two entrances, one for us (ground floor level) and another that fed out on the nearby Milburngate bridge. I rarely used that entrance but it was the usual point of exit if the river burst it's banks. It did so three times during a particularly wet September and led to some great times on the first floor looking out at the hay bails and trees being swept by the Wear. You'd get the PA message to move your cars for the parking at river level and the rest would leave from the multi-storey that we had.

One thing about a building that size is it's easy to make yourself look busy. Either grab a trolley or just wander around with a piece of paper in your hand as if you're trying to find something. Easy. Same could be said for stretching out piss breaks. Just find a toilet furthest away and that's another ten minutes. The canteen was weird. It had two floors to it and a stage. I'm told it used to act as a social club and you'd get staff members pouring pints during shifts. By the end, though, it was a lot of empty space. The carpets looked like they never changed or were cleaned in 30 years of existence and everything looked knackered.

One of the best treats were going down to the basement to look for index cards. There was a lift to that floor but I've heard a story of a colleague deciding to launch a trolley down the stairs. It's completely cut off, dark and all that's there are filing cabinets full of archive stuff. There was a phone for emergencies and that's it. You tended to get out of there sharpish.

It's all gone now but I do miss the blocky concrete monster. Sort of how I miss the Gateshead multi-storey that's now become a massive 24-hour Tesco. Or the old Eldon Square bus station that was under the shopping centre.

Any pointless stories of nostalgia you guys want to tell? We've potentially got four months of this shit.

[Ian]

I was telling a yoof (mid-20s) the other day about when McDonalds did the Hat Trick burger for Euro 96 and gave you your fries in a big paper bag with a sachet of spicy powder that you put in and shook up to make spicy fries.