R’s interview
S: What was your first time like?
0:46
R: Okay, my first time going urbexing was when we went a nature
reserve near where I live. It was an outdoor urbex, we didn’t go into a
building or anything but we basically there was a load of forest surrounded by
fields and in these forests were lots of little hutches and things that were
meant to house particular different types of birds and animals and it was all
shut off to the public cos obviously they don’t want them tampering with the
nature. Anyway, we decided to cut through and go in anyway, wandering through
for a while we discovered that we were being pursued by a land rover that was
patrolling the area and we had to kind of sneak out through all these fields
and different forests back to where we started. Um, yeah that was my first time
urbexing, if that counts.
S: Where did you first hear about urban exploring? .....
2.00
R: Well actually cos I’ve always been interested in photography I
discovered urbexing through that, through looking at various peoples
photographs and thinking oh, you know, these are interesting these derelict
buildings or this and that and basically I stumbled across all the forums of
urbexing looking for general photography stuff and from there sort of gained a
insight into what it was like and then began doing it myself I suppose.
2:45
S: Who did you start going with?
...........
R: I never really went urbexing on my own, um, I never really
thought about it like that we just did it as friends you know. At first, we weren’t
particularly hardcore about it and didn’t even go out with the intention of
urbexing we just sort of would be out and then we’d stumble across something
and end up exploring it and that was fun. It wasn’t really till I came to
Sheffield that we started specifically going out to find these places. So I
suppose I started out with my friends from home.
3:40
S: How often do you go?
R: Well, I mean, during the middle of winter it’s a bit more relaxed
we don’t tend to go out very often due to the weather but I’d say a couple of
times a month. I mean, especially in Sheffield you have to wait for the good
places to have access again you know, so for months it might be closed up so
you can’t go there at all and then suddenly you’ll be going to the same place you
know, every other day for two weeks because that’s when its open and thats your
chance to get in. It’s not part of a routine, I don’t have a routine as a
person but fairly often I suppose.
4:32
S: Why do you keep going?
R: I dunno, I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t say I have a thirst for
urbex, I wouldn’t put it like that, I’d say the reason I keep going and doing
this kind of thing is because you know, once you see one place you think, well
that was nice, I’ve seen that now then when you see another place you think oh
I wanna know what that’s like, I wanna go in there. I suppose there’s always
something in the back of your head that thinks oh, I might find a really good
place or somewhere that someone else hasn’t seen before. Be the first one to
document it or the first one to find an entry point......
5:18
S: Have you ever been caught or got into any trouble?
R: I have been caught a couple of times. Mostly been caught by
security guards rather than the police because it’s very rare for the police to
respond to stuff like that if the place is already patrolled by a security
firm. Also police are pretty identifiable, if we see a cop car coming up, we
tend to you know, get the hell out of there. Whereas security people tend to
sort of come in unmarked vehicles so you don’t see them approaching. And that’s
when you get caught. I’ve never got in any trouble for it. The basic rule of
thumb is yeah, you’re trespassing but as long as you’re polite and you know,
once you’re caught you accept the fact that you’ve gotta leave they won’t give
you anymore trouble. Most of the time it’s more hassle for them than it’s
worth, you know.
6:22
S: Have you ever been scared?.....
R: Yeah, I have actually been really scared a couple of times,
possibly the scariest time was er, we were in a bank, and um, we opened the
lift shaft on the first floor and we’d already entered through this window and
noticed that the carpet was very squidgy you know sort of like it was really
damp and we’d not really paid any attention to that but we opened this lift
shaft and there was like this red floor, it looked like a really rusty eroded
kind of lift shaft if you know what I mean, and we’re sort of peering in you
know like I leaned in with my camera and took a photo of the lift shaft going
up and stuff like that. It was then when my friend sort of tested the ground
with a one of those long lightbulbs or I dunno, strip lights, um, and we
realised that it wasn’t actually a floor it was in fact a layer of rust on a
really deep pool and we dropped a stone down there to see how far it was and we
didn’t hear it hit the bottom. So we reckoned it was a couple of basement
floors deep. Which would have been the worst. I mean, after that I didn’t dare
go near the lift, it freaked me out. It was some sort of Mythos shit.
7:54
But, nah, I still think about that sometimes, the idea of falling
into that would have been the worst thing.
8:05
S: Where’s the best place you’ve been?
R: Well, I mean, I wouldn’t say I have an overall favourite place as
such but there are parts of various different places that I really loved seeing
like um we went into an old post office sorting house in my old home town and
down in the basement there was these couple of conveyor belts they obviously
used to bring parcels along and scan or whatever before they were shipped out.
And we found a load of sort of undelivered parcels to various people, and you
know we open a couple and there was like you know there was a couple of get
well soon cards there was like you know various like letters and like all this
stuff that had all been sealed before so yeah some of them were dated back till
like the late 80’s some things like that. I always thought it was quite
amazing, these parcels had been sitting there for you know, 20 years and had
never been delivered to their recipient. I just thought that was really
interesting.
......
9:33
S: Where’s the worst place you’ve been?
R: I mean obviously some times you enter buildings and there’s
nothing to see and it’s a but disappointing if you know spent a while trying to
get in there. When those are sort of are what we consider the bad points about
urbexing is when there’s nothing to see (laughs) or do and it’s literally just
an empty warehouse or something like that but possibly the worst place I went
to was a building out in this village near where I live, we’re not even sure
what it was used for but we found a load of bear traps in there that hadn’t
gone off either, they were still armed and so we were kind of worried about
wandering around in the darkness with
bear traps about. I mean that was pretty horrible.
10:35
S: What do you think you personally get out of it?
R: What I take away from it mainly as a photographer would be the
photos that I get, I mean thats mainly why I’m into, I know alot of other people
prefer to do graffiti and prefer to just you know visit these places for the
sheer hell of it but I always feel a lot better about a trip if I’ve got some
great photographs to show for it. I’d say that’s definitely what I go there for
over anything else.
11:20
S: What would your ideal site be?
R: Well, the sort of holy grail in this country for urbexing would
be asylums because there’s none in this country now and they’ve all been closed
down and they’re hard to come by because most of them have been converted into
flats or converted into something else. And so there’s very few empty asylums
left and they’re some of the most interesting places because they’re hospitals
as well as living quarters as well as kind of like prisons in a way and so you
get the kind of big three in derelict stuff going on. I really wanna see a
padded cell, that’s something I’d love to.
12:18
S: Do you ever take anything home with you?
R: I mean the general code or urbex is, if there is one, is leave it
as you found it but that often isn’t the case because these places are already
so messed up that you kinda forget that that little rule will end up taking
little bits. I mean, I’ve found various things, I’ve found one of my most
prized possessions I guess would be I found a little box of slide films that
would have gone into a little slide projector and it was just really cool
looking at these sort of really dusty slides that someone had made and had been
left in this building for years.
13:06
Other than that, you take little things, we’ve been in places where
there’s been lovely old televisions and lovely old chairs and all these other
things but they’re not worth taking really, if you’re gonna take anything what
you look for is tiny little things like medicine bottles and books and stuff
like that.
13:35
S: Have you ever left anything behind?
..............................
14:15
R: Well, I haven’t personally left anything deliberately I mean some
of my friends who like to do graffiti and art they leave things all the time on
the walls that kind of thing, as for me, I mean, we sometimes, we explore a
building and decide we wanted to chill out there for a bit so we’d set up a
nice area to sit we’ve leave a nice little space for the next people to come
and chill out. Like one time we found a load of fake potted plants and moved
them all around to make a nice sort of cozy little garden, brought a sofa in
and just sort of sat there and chilled there all evening with some beers. That
was a great thing. And I think that that little space is still there.
15:04
S: Have you ever met anyone new at a site?
R: We have met people at sites, it does happen from time to time
especially with the more sort of important places particularly like Hallam
Towers, there’s quite often someone else around. But for the most part the
people we go with are the people we stick with. I have met a few people through
urbexing but I’ve not met them on site I’ve met them then gone to sites. I
think people just tend to keep to themselves with it, it’s not a social situation
particularly.
15:53
S:How do you find out about new sites?
R: I mean, I do use the forums to find out about new sites and that
does crop up from time to time but the problem with the forums is there are
always a bit behind because obviously the best way to hear about a site is
through word of mouth and I say that’s still true. A lot of my friends who are
into it you know, will sort of be like oh Rob, there’s a new place around the
corner you know, we just checked it out its good you know, next time you’re
down here you should definitely see it or you know one of my friends up here
will be like oh there’s a place over there let’s go tomorrow. But I mean yeah
when I, when we run out of places we probably always pop back onto the forums
and see if there’s anything new but the forums are mostly used for old places
that you know about that have been closed down and then you hear about it being
reopened or whatever so you know you can get back there.
17:00
I mean, that’s how we found out about the court houses and er one of
the breweries in Sheffield.
17:15
S: Why do the empty buildings appeal to you?
R: I mean, there’s a level of the whole kind of desecration of these
places I find really interesting and the de-composition of it as well is really
interesting to me. I mean it depends on the place I mean some places you got to
cos you know it was a really interesting place when it was open and was used
and so naturally its really interesting to visit when it’s derelict. Other
places are bog-standard warehouses but have you know great pieces of art in and
so it’s worth visiting for that. Other times you know there’s you purely go out
of interest, you know you don’t know what to expect or you know, you wanna find
out so you just do it.
18:16
S: Are there any specific places you’d like to visit in the future?
.......
R: Well, I don’t, I’m not planning to do this in the future but
should I ever find myself in Detroit, I’ll visit the theatre there, there’s a
famous theatre this old theatre from the 40’s and 50’s that closed down sort of
late 50’s that’s been shut ever since and stalagmites and stalactites have
started to grow out the ceiling through all this old lovely sort of post
Victorian architecture and this huge you know, theatre halls with rough you
know horrible chairs and stuff and a stage and there’s a grand piano there and
stuff like that. I’d really wanna go there if I can. There’s always in Detroit
Penhurst, I think it’s called Penhurst but basically there’s a website devoted
to that to tell people whether it’s on fire or not cos its a really large
complex and it’s kind of identifiable because someone drove or managed to get a
camper van onto the roof of it, i’m not sure how they did this but basically
there’s a burnt out camper van hanging off the edge of that building and its
been like that for years. I find that really cool
19:44
S: What do people tend to think about what you do?
R: I mean, well people who know what’s its about tend to have a nice
understanding of it, I mean sometimes I’ve spoken to people about it and they
don’t really understand the point of it or anything like and they know they
wanna know why’d you waste your time going there you know. You could go to the
cinema and watch sometimes or you could do all this. And I just kinda think ..............
20:27
Well, I guess most people are accepting of it, no-one seems to care
that its against the law, I’ve never had anyone tell me oh you can’t do that,
but it tends to be people who know about urbexing find it interesting and will
happily listen to you talk about all these places whereas other people seem to
have no interest in it whatsoever and you know talking about an empty building
to them is a waste of your time.
20:57
S: Why is it you take photography equipment?
R: Well I take my camera everywhere. So, it makes sense for me to
take it to these places. but also
because you know when you go to these places you might be in a small group and
if it’s a really nice location you wanna show it to other people and
particularly if you’re exploring new location, it’s worth obviously taking a
camera so you can show people on the internet what it’s like and if it’s a
brand new location no-one ever visited before you’re bound to you know, be the
first one to get photos there you know thats perfect. I guess I take it just
because I like photography. And I feel weird without my camera to be honest.
21:57
S: How do you feel about redeveloping sites?
....................
R: I mean obviously that’s the nature of it, these places are empty
and are serving no purpose to society so if someone wants to buy it and knock
it down then fair enough to them. What really bugs me is when people stop you
from getting in to a place that is so accessible like they’ll put barbed wire
and unnecessary amounts of anti climb paint up and I, just to me, I just kinda
think why are you stopping this you know, wouldn’t it be better to just sort of
let us in and let us get on with it rather than making it as hard as possible
because I often feel thats how people get hurt when we’re out because there’s
barbed wire and theres slippery paint all on the walls and that’s what causes
injuries more than the fact that we’re
wandering around a rusty old building
23:11
S: Do you tend to keep it a secret?
R: If someone was interested in it and wanted to go I’d happily take
them, I think that’s great, I’d expect that from someone else that knows a
location and if I wanted to explore I’d want them to take me to it. I guess I
am pretty open with it partly why I’m talking to you now but I’m not ashamed of
it if that’s what you mean and I don’t hide it from people. Sure, I don’t tell
everyone about it because it’s not everyones interests but to the people that I
know are interested in it I’ll always let them know if I’ve found something
worth visiting.
......................
24:28
S: Do you know if you’ve inspired anyone to take up the sport?
R: Well, yeah I suppose I have got people interested in it over the
years, it was never my intention to get people interested in it, I always just
sort of took them along if they wanted to come with me you know. We started in
a small group back home down south so up here in the north, I’m in a completely
different set of people, some of which did it back from where they were at home
and other people you know have come to university and discovered it really and
really got into that way. I wouldn’t say I’m solely responsible for making some
of my friends into it now but at the same time I don’t know if they’d do it as
much if I hadn’t been there.
25:39
S: Do you think you’ll always been into it?
R: I dunno really, I guess at this moment in time I have no
intention to stop doing it, I think they’ll inevitably come a point in the
future where I have you know go to work and I have to do all these other things
and I don’t have the time for stuff like that but for as long as I can do it I
think I will do it. If that leads me into a 70 year old urbexer then so be it.
.........................................
27:08
S: Do you ever worry that a site will be destroyed due to redevelopment?
R: I don’t so much as worry about a site being destroyed as much as
I’m disappointed when I hear about it. I mean, because it’s such a illegal
activity we don’t have a say, we couldn’t turn up at a group of urbexers and
say no don’t knock this down, you know, we wanna keep coming here and smashing
your windows. So obviously, if they wanna redevelop it that’s fine but I think
the one place I’d be most annoyed about being redeveloped would be Chernobyl.
And that area. Because I think that’s not only important for urbexers because
it’s a really amazing empty city but also because of the whole event and the
fact we should never really forget how bad that was, I think it would be a
great shame if that area was flattened and then re-built. Even if it did mean
it was better for the people around there. I think it should always remain a
zone of alienation.
......................
Saying that, Chernobyl is definitely one of the places I’m going to
visit before I die.
......................
28:43
S: Do you have a favourite site?
R: Yeah, okay well my favourite site in Sheffield is well, I guess
it’s a tie between Hallam Towers and a place called George Barns which is the
place with the ladder. Partly because they’re big buildings and there’s a lot
to them and Hallam Towers has such a great view of Sheffield that it’s kind of
awe inspiring being up there and although it’s completely trashed you still get
a sense of what it was like when it was open as a hotel. And it’s one of the
best locations for shooting at sunset with the sun falling behind it it’s
amazing. As for George Barns, there’s such a diversity there, there’s like a
really overgrown patch you know, the roots of the earth have really come up
through the brick and started to take it apart. Then you get into a much more
kind of industrial space which is still like you know like has the kind of
memory, bits of the past still lying around and that’s really cool you know
like, safety messages and stuff like that.
30:34
And then of course because it’s a big place there’s also offices
yeah where there was all the typing equipment and the printing equipment and
all these records about you know, although it sounds uninteresting the
steelwork industry, it’s you know, records dating back to the 1800’s, and I think
that kinda thing is awesome and valuable in a sense.
30:32
S: How do you feel about explorers causing damage to sites?
R: Well, I mean I’m not innocent of causing damage. I’ve never
deliberately gone out of my way to trash something though you know, I suppose,
say I was in a group of, and I’d never met this group of urbexers before and I
went with them and they were trashing it, I’d be like guys stop, you know,
that’s not the point of being here. I wouldn’t consider that urbexing if you
know what I mean, I consider that vandalism. And yeah you do, we’ve bumped into
groups of people there before who come purely because you know, they know it’s
empty you know, they know they can set up you know, set fire to the curtains or
whatever but you know, if we ever saw that, we’d try and get them to stop cos
firstly it draws attention to the location which is not good and secondly
you’re losing part of the history of the building and for all the people that come there after, all
theyre gonna see is a burnt out wreck that than a lovely old building.
.......................................................................
33:48
S: Have you ever been hurt?
R: ..............Yeah okay, I mentioned this earlier, the bank we
went into, it’s called Deacon House it’s right next to Staples in the middle of
Sheffield so it’s right on the main road and it had always been closed up... it
was the first time it’d ever really had access to last May when we went in
there and my friend sort of said oh you know there’s a tiny window on the main
road that’s been knocked through and so we literally have a few days to get in
there before someone comes and boards that up and it literally was on the main
road, there was a taxi rank next to it with taxis sitting there and we just had
to wait till all the taxis and been taken so we could hop in. Anyway, because
we were trying to get in really quickly I sort of just tried to vault through
the window and like basically stabbed myself with some shattered glass right in
the palm and my hand bled like crazy but of course we didn’t have, we didn’t
wanna leave because it was the only chance we had to be in there so I just had
to sort of you know wrap it with my sort of scarf at the time and wait until we
left and by the end by arm was just covered in blood. I mean it wasn’t a bad
injury, it wasn’t a massive cut it just bled like fucking crazy.
............
I mean, by the time we left, I was feeling pretty faint and I could
no longer really feel my arm too well, it was almost like it had been drained, it
was really light and sort of, you like that pins and needly feeling you get, it
was like that but ..... sort of touched the door knob and there’s blood all
over the door knob, it was quite gross but I wasn’t severely hurt, I was fine
the next day when I had a plaster on it.
36:08
...
Guys, if you walk past that building and look in one of the windows,
you can see my bloody handprint, it’s on the inside of the window.
36:26
S: Do you not worry about infection?....
R: I didn’t worry about infection no!
.........................
37:05
R: It was quite funny, we had to wait for ages, like a couple of
hours to leave because there was a really drunken argument going on out by the
broken window between these two people but we didn’t feel right, just climbing
out of a window whilst they were doing that.
37:20
S: Do you ever think about what the site used to look like?
R: Well, no, half the appeal is knowing what it’s about or trying to
find out what it was about. I mean sometimes we visit places with no idea and
you know, we see bits and piece together a sort of little puzzle sort of in a
way and try and work out what it was used for. Other times, like for instance,
Hallam Towers, we’re fully aware that it was a hotel before going so you know
that makes it more interesting when you find loads of..Hallam Towers is great
because you’ve got the old visitors book and it starts off with the actual
people who stayed at the hotel all this stuff, then towards the end, cos it
shut down in like 2004 I think or maybe even earlier than that, after that
point, people have been dating it 2008, 2009, because they’ve just visited the
derelict building and they’re putting their name in the visitors book and I
thought that was great.
38:21
But yeah obviously you go to it because it’s derelict, I mean it
wouldn’t be as interesting I guess if it was still a functioning hotel, we
wouldn’t spend much time exploring it then. But you know, when you’re in there
you just can’t help thinking about what it was like when it was in use.
38:41
S: Does it matter to you what the site is?
R: I mean I generally like to check everything out cos of the kind
of photography I do I’m not just taking standard images or the place, I like
to, you know find my artsy little niche and get all that sort of stuff so even
if it isn’t a particularly interesting location, it’s still you know, you can
find something interesting about it I suppose. It doesn’t bother me, we tend to
go most places that we can access.
39:25
S: Do you have any preference in day or night?
R: Well my personal preference is definitely daytime because of the
light, I mean light is important when you’re trying to look at things,
especially when taking photos but we do find ourselves a lot of the time,
especially in the winter months going round places at night, partly because you
know you’ve got the cover then to get into these buildings and also you know
its easier to sort of hide yourself should anything bad kind of happen. But I
say I definitely prefer urbexing in the day if I can. Of course, that’s the
only problem with security guards tend
to be on duty during the day and not so much at night but you know, you take
the risk.
40:32
S: Is there any special equipment you need?
R: Well it depends on how hardcore you are really about urbexing I
mean I was saying to you early about how we rarely break actually break in to
places because we tend to go to places that are already, someone else has
already broken into. So we don’t need the various tools like a crowbar or a
hammer or whatever you need to get through into places. But some people would
consider that absolutely imperative if you’re going urbexing incase you can’t
get into places. I’d say the most important equipment for me is a permanent
marker and a camera with a tripod. And maybe a little flash gun.
41:23
S: Is there any special skills that you need?
R: Well it’s definitely harder to urbex if you can’t climb because a
lot of the time, you have to climb to get into places but I wouldn’t say
there’s any particular skills. I mean the beauty of it is there’s something for
everyone, some locations are really easy, you just walk in and everything’s
there for you, other times you know you’ve got to scale a you know one story up
a building to get into the second floor or whatever. We always tend to scout
out a location to see whether its feasible and if not everyone in our group can
do it then we try and help them or we leave it, you know. I’d say you gotta be
relatively agile, it does help at least.
42:17
S: Would you say that its taught you anything?
R: I wouldn’t say I’d learnt anything profoundly new through
urbexing however I definitely would say it’s advanced my skills in photography
over the years, you know, I’ve definitely got better at that as part of the
whole urbexing scene. It’s forced me to work on writing my name down in a cool
way, you know. I used to be absolutely terrible at doing a little tag, I’d
always fuck it up but now I seem to be able to do a roughly alright one without
too much trouble. I’d say rather than it teaching me anything it’s given me a
greater appreciation of the world around me and that, I find it funny that
people can walk down a street and not even notice that there’s a lovely old
building there let alone all the amazing stuff that could be inside of it and
you know, when you start urbexing you do start noticing when there’s abandoned
buildings you know, the telltale signs you know, boarded up windows you know, a
smashed gate you know, stuff like that. And it forces you to you know look at
the world rather than just letting it pass you by.
43:50
S: Do you have any advice for anyone that’s interested in it?
R: I guess, don’t be a dick. I mean one of the great pieces of
advice I read online when I was starting to do it was the three golden rules
this guys posted which was, don’t break what you can’t steal, don’t steal what
you can’t break and always leave it as you found it. Which basically means
don’t go in there smashing stuff up and don’t go in there with the intention of
stripping it of anything of value but also don’t ruin the value of the location
for everyone else who wants to visit. And yeah obviously, don’t be crazy about
it, don’t, and also don’t get caught up in the illegality of it cos its,
although it is illegal, you’re not actually gonna get prosecuted so you know,
just do what you want. Don’t fuck it up.
45:18
S: Do you find any of these places depressing or distressing?
R: Sometimes I find them, sometimes I find the locations slightly
depressing, I mean it’s got that edge to it because of the whole sort of
dereliction and everything and there are some really creepy things that you see
like churches especially are creepy and you know sometimes you know you can be
wandering off and suddenly realise you’re completely alone in a utterly dark
room and you’ll hear a door slam or something and it really freaks you out but
at the end of the day, I don’t get too caught up in the emotion of it, it’s
more interesting than it is depressing or distressing definitely. And if it is
depressing or distressing that’s partly what makes it interesting I suppose.
46:33
S: What sort of things do you do while you’re on site?
R: Well one of the things about urbexing is that you leave your mark
somewhere. Some people like to do huge murals all over the wall cos they’re
great artists and someone like me would just be happy leaving their initials on
you know, a wall somewhere. Just sort of so I know I’ve been there. I spent a
lot of time just looking at things, I mean that’s part of it, it’s almost like
a, its almost like a museum in that sense you’re in an art gallery, you’re
wandering around looking at things that have been put there or been left there.
I suppose I divide my time between the actual exploration of it, trying to find
every little nook and cranny of the building and also just taking it in, you
know, finding out what it was used for, why these things have been left there.
Like Stanley Tools for instance, you know, we first time we went there we
didn’t go up to the top floor, it was only up on the second or third trip that
we found that top floor bit and you know, found all those stickers and like all
the little cards talking about all the various different knives that Stanley
used to make and it’s not massively amazing and I wouldn’t sit there and read
books about Stanley knives but I think it’s really cool to see something that
once was, you know, some guys’ job that once was, setting their neat pile has
since, it’s just been left and forgotten about and strewn across the floor.
.....
48:45
S: Do you research a site before you go?
R: We always try to research the site before we go, firstly for
entry points, people are pretty tight-lipped about entry points because
obviously if you give that away everyone can go there and you don’t want that,
cos that ruins the site inevitably. But people do leave clues, you know,
they’ll say, this is what we saw and got in round the corner or whatever and
you’ve gotta go find that and we often, the majority of the research we do is,
we find out about a place, find out where exactly it is and how we can get
there and then secondly maybe try and find out what it was if we don’t know.
And also maybe when it closed, that’s one of the most important points, knowing
how long it’s been derelict.
49:48
S: what do you do with your photos afterwards?
R: Well sometimes I like to put up a report on one of the forums
about the location and I’ll use my photographs in that report. And you know,
just to inform everyone else of whats going on. Other times I take it purely
just because, you know, I like doing it and it’s my hobby. Like I said, I’d
find it really weird if I was somewhere without my camera so the idea of not
taking photos doesn’t make sense to me. Even if I don’t do anything with the
photos, I’d probably still be taking them.
50:36
........................................
51:22
S: Have you got any interesting stories? ............
51:48
R: Okay I’ll tell you, in my home town, there was, there used to be,
there’s not anymore cos like they’ve built something else but there used to be
a railway line that went through, straight through the middle of town and then
round through all the hills and connected us to all the other little villages
and towns. And it was an old Victorian railway and it had been out of use for
years, you know, so overgrown, you could barely see it in some places, the
actual track itself, and you couldn’t follow the track all the way along
because it’s too overgrown but theres one place out of town where you walk for
about 40 minutes and we called it, we nick-named the place Paradise because its
an overgrown outdoor station, just a little station, with a platform and a
little, literally a tiny little outhouse and it was all made of wood so the
wood obviously over the years fallen down so the buildings not really there
anymore there’s not roof to it but you can still see, you know, where people
would of waited and the platforms still there, just surrounded by plants and
everything and there’s, you know, a lamppost with a Victorian style, you know,
design to it and we just thought that was like one of the most tranquil places
we ever found, just because of how like, how sort of overgrown and natural it
was but at the same time it was a, it used to be a very human and industrial
construct that has now just been regained by nature and is this quiet little
place with birds singing rather than steams chugging along.
...................
53:40
R: Firstly, it wasn’t my fault. And it was an accident, we didn’t go
in there with the intention of burning it down. At first anyway. It happened because
we were looking for a place to have a rave and we thought it would be a good
place because the electricity still worked and that’s per-, that’s rave
perfection there, you know, not having to pay for a generator. So we were
literally just having a little party there, just to see if it would work as a
bigger thing and I won’t go into the details about how the fire started but
upstairs in one of the offices is where people were cotching and relaxing cos
there were mattresses up there. A fire started and the floor caught and cos
obviously there was electricity, things started to go really wrong and, you
know, it basically caught properly alight and we had to get out of there really
quickly. I mean, I jumped out of a one storey window into the, into a bush and
luckily wasn’t hurt but it was pretty panicky cos it was a tiny entry point,
you had to really slide in and so imagine 7 or 8 people having to slide out of
a burning building when you can hear the fire brigade in the distance and it
was pretty mad. Eventually they knocked that place down because it couldn’t
really stand on it’s own feet anymore but it used to be a slaughterhouse so it,
I mean, the outdoor bit was horrible, it had all these horrible dingy
corrugated steel shacks that, sort of iron shacks that had obviously rusted to
shit and there was still like a little pool where the blood would have been
kept for draining and the hooks and the chains where they would have drained
the animal, that was gross. It looked like there was congealed blood in there
still. I don’t know that for sure but that’s what it looked like. Um, yeah. It
was a pretty bad thing. We were all massively drunk as wells so we didn’t
really understand the danger we were in at the time.
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