A Postcard from Peterborough

Posh stadium hidden behind the concrete jungle. Takeaway delivery drivers fighting their way to join the traffic. Whilst men on motorbikes zoom out of the KFC car park with boxes strapped to their backs. The rather dubious car wash and the Kwik Fit causing worlds to collide. Further down the road the embankment feels like a different city. The views, food, theatre and court. Colliding worlds is common theme in such a place. 

Seeds for new opportunities are being planted in the form of scaffolding. Lectures, careers fairs and freshers. High hopes for the new university and rightly so. Moving deeper into town, talk of a new high street chain store replacing any trace of the cinema that had been promised once upon a time. 

Three Greggs but not one Apple store. Snobbery isn’t acceptable but does make you wonder what the socioeconomical climate looks like here. The faces of men and women who are sat on the ground, far more familiar than should be. 

Food everywhere. Steak, pasta, Indian, anything you could possibly fancy eating. Not forgetting the compulsory Costa. That puts Peterborough on the map. 

The further you go, the less there is to see. The library. The Kurdish takeaway with the stairs taking you to an underground world. Not the nicest looking of men making their way down there. Most people do not notice as they make their way into Wetherspoons or Tesco across the road.  

The prospect of hope seems visible again once you reach the university media centre.