First the Harley-Davidson-riding Hell’s Angels, yesterday the mods and skinheads, and now the cyclists; today Watermouth's full of them, streaming towards the sea front along Maynard Gardens in their hundreds.
This is a popular place in the summer; holiday makers crowding the grass outside the Cathedral, packing the antique shops in North Street and the seafront, and I regard them with the cynical eye of the year-round inhabitant. I can’t now see this place objectively, or see why everyone comes here, excitedly taking photos. It’s the same with the Dales.
My bathroom-cum-bedroom overlooks Barnum Avenue and the all-night clatter of the fruit and vegetable market, and the comings and goings of lorries and forklift trucks often disturbs my sleep at night. If I stand on my bed to open the sash window I can see across the street into the bright lit interior of the Rajneesh centre opposite, which is situated inconspicuously—almost furtively—beside the market. I can see the devotees—if that be the word—moving to and fro inside, clad all in red, and they’re a familiar sight these days around this particular area of Maynard Gardens.
One of their number, bearded and with black hair and beads around his neck, occasionally serves on behind the bar in the Pembroke, reading the Rajneesh Times when he’s unoccupied.
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