Uptown, Downtown

Downtown was released by Petula Clark in 1965. In those days downtown was obviously the place to be  if you were feeling lonely and generally out of sorts. I was 21 at the time and keen to "linger on the sidewalk where the neon lights were pretty". You see, the lights are so much brighter there , you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares. I'm not sure that downtown Braintree was exactly what she had in mind in 1965 and I'm pretty sure that neither she nor my mother would recognise it today with its endless supply of food courts.

We ourselves didn't live downtown and we certainly didn't live uptown either. Where did we live exactly? We lived on the edge of town where the bright city lights gave way to pig farms and Eastern National double-decker busses. Not much in the way of civilisation and certainly not an uptown girl in sight.

By the time New York degenerate Billy Joel got around to singing Uptown Girl in 1983, things had changed to the extent that uptown  had become a gated community complete with inland marinas and private security firms. You wouldn't think that uptown girls would want anything to do with the swarthy mechanics running amok downtown, but such is the mystery of life, girls were to be found drawn to the "authentic" values of Billy and his mates. The charm very soon wore off, of course, and the girls, older if no wiser, dried their tears and returned to the warm embrace of daddy.