A quick heads up- In Shrewsbury, my chums at Adorn, the body art place on Mardol, are accepting donations on behalf of Cuan Wildlife Rescue, who take in injured creatures and nurse them back to health. Donations are accepted in the form of cat food, dry dog food, kitten biscuits, stuff like that, and if this is something that you want to help with, then contact them on 01743 343330.
Meanwhile, today we're celebrating. It's my 200th blog post, and it's the rooftop of the Bingo Hall again. I've been up there before, but given that I've grown and changed since then, and also given that I wasn't too happy with the blog post last time, I decided that it needed covering again.
The bingo hall is important, because in Shrewsbury I've climbed pretty much everywhere- St Chads, the Market Tower, St Julians, the parade shopping centre. But for some reason, we never could figure out how to climb that damn Bingo Hall, and to me that's hilarious. Was this my unconquerable foe? Not a church spire, but a bingo hall. Needless to say, getting up there scratched a major itch, and it was kinda fitting that when we did finally do it, it fell coincidentally on my 100th blog post, and it's almost a complete coincidence that my return visit would mark my 200th. But by almost I mean, I did cheat a bit. It was a complete coincidence that this one was going to be my 199th blog post, but for the sake of synchronicity, and to round things off, I bumped my McDonalds shoot with Katie up a bit on the schedule.
Having once more scaled the bingo hall, it's time to celebrate another hundred adventures on the blogs. Check out the view!
For any who don't know, those streaks of light are traffic. The pictures are taken on a long exposure, and anything thats in motion will come across as a blur. The individual cars tend to be in and out of shot before the shot has finished being taken, but the photons emitted by the headlamps have already made their way into the camera, such is the speed of light.
Up there's the castle.
For me the whole rooftopping thing came about as a coping mechanism, although my studies into PTSD suggest that it might in fact be an adrenaline addiction. But whatever the subconscious machinations of my brain, I very much know that this particular means of escapism was due to disassociation. I'm completely lacking in a feeling of belongingness. It's not so bad. The truth is, to "fix me" would rob me of my quirks and eccentricities. And that for me is an unacceptable nightmare scenario. I'd never have climbed anything cool, I'd just be sat at home reading about other people doing similar things and, heaven forbid, watching Love Island.
It's very convenient, being eccentric. It allows me to be who I want to be. I'm quite happy to admit that I'm bonkers, and so when I'm climbing a building, or painting my arse blue for some reason, the world simply says "Oh that's just what he does."
When you accept your weirdness, the world conforms to you.
My mind works very unconventionally. It's well documented by medical professionals, but so far my refusal to go for the full pharynxal rope burn has kept them from offering any form of insight beyond putting emotions into a chemical restraint, which isn't for me. When I allowed that to happen, I became a shadow of myself. I like my emotions. The enjoyable ones, and the others. I don't want to call them good or bad. They're valid, even when they are unpleasant to experience, and I think self acceptance is really something one needs first and foremost. It's the foundation of self love. If you can't love yourself, at least accept yourself. Self acceptance promotes contentment, and makes you invulnerable to those who seek to pull others down to feel powerful. It levels the playing field somewhat when you realise that you are just one example of a species of primate, and that every other example is insecure, foolish, flawed and gassy, just like you.
The Bingo Hall does have one very intriguing secret, and I've touched on it before, but it would be wrong to climb up here and do a blog without writing on it again.
The Bingo Hall opened its doors in 1934 as The Granada Theatre, and it lasted as such until 1973. If you face it from street level and look right at the top, the old "Granada" lettering can still faintly be seen on the brickwork above their decorative pillars.
In the buildings time as a theatre, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles performed here. In fact, the Beatles wrote their song "From me to you" while on their way to Shrewsbury for that performance in 1963.
But what few people know is that only about 30% of the building was converted into a bingo hall, and the upper levels, accessible only through rooftopping, are still that of a theatre frozen in time.
Isn't this insane? Each seat has a layer of dust completely untouched for years. Because smoking indoors was still acceptable when this place was open, each chair has an ashtray built into the back, and look at this!
Vintage ash! On the last night of the place being open, it must have just been left. But that is not all.
Further back, the old lighting equipment is still up here.
And these customer toilets, long since out of use but still in better shape than the toilets in some pubs and clubs, have bottles of alcohol resting on the windows, likely purchased at the bar on the last night, and left here, never to be cleaned up.
Down these stairs, which still look very Theatre-like, I'll no doubt either find a fire exit or find myself in the still occupied part of the bingo hall. And that simply doesn't interest me. It's the history that I love.
I kept my poke around the theatre to a minimal but would honestly love to have another look. I'm sure there's more to see, but I would ideally prefer to seek permission for it, given that the lower part of the building is still very much active.
Anyway, that's all I got. Share this blog where you want. It'll be the last one for a while, as my next two are on my international blog- first a derelict retail unit, and then a derelict church. Until then, follow my Instagram, Like my Facebook page and follow my Twitter so that you never miss an update. Thanks for reading!
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