The members of the public seem to have adopted a certain style. In that, I mean that they either skive school most days, looking for fights; go to school and then follow it up with a healthy dose of the skate park, looking seriously ‘rebellious’; or there are the people who go to school and escape at night to a different town, of which there are few. It’s not the skiving school kids that you have to look out for, even if they do look the most ‘hard’ it’s the seemingly innocent ‘goths’. Granted, the problem used to be more wide spread, but they still have the nerve to chuck water bombs and M’n’M’s at my cousin (luckily never me). Obviously their favourite of hiding places is the skate park, but when they do leave, and it’s not for food, it is probably to get the number of phone booths, stand some way away, and proceed to call the booth, in the hope that someone will pick up the phone. Sadly, no-one does, ever.
But it’s not all bad, however. Wycombe can be very good for getting what you need in town. Unlike some places, where you have to go to a bigger town, you can pick up some clothes there. This brings me on to my next point: Wycombe town centre. For all of the setbacks Wycombe possesses, it can be quite a nice place. Since living there, I have developed a taste for chicken tikka baguettes. No longer do I opt for the healthy alternative; McDonalds or Burger King, I would sooner have a nice baguette. Another thing that’s good about Wycombe town centre is the range of shops, there’s everything you need there. Admittedly, it can be a little too spread out, annoying when there are so many hills to negotiate. But I would rather the shops stuck up a hill, than have a town centre like Marlow’s, a town full of coffee bars.
One thing that does really get annoying, is how far away Wycombe is from the rest of my friends, and school for that matter. Rather than just walk in to Marlow or Maidenhead, I always have to get a lift. That wouldn’t be quite so bad if any of my friends lived in Wycombe. But who would want to? And it wouldn’t be so bad if the school was within walking distance, but sadly it isn’t. If I miss my bus, that’s it, I’m stuck. I walked back from school once, one word: hell.
Now for the good stuff: when phrased like that, it’s quite difficult to answer in a list-like form. Instead of having a collection of great things, there are many subtle things that are good about Wycombe. For example: the parks. It’s great (?) to take my dog for a walk to Tombert’s Hill; a lovely stretch of green, complete with the twitter of sparrows and other small birds, overlooking the whole of Wycombe. It’s a sight to behold. The cinema, as mundane as it may sound, is easy to get to, just a quick stroll down the road, and is often visited. The hockey pitch, although further than the cinema is still just about within walking distance, a fact that is very useful considering that when hockey is in season, I’ll go there at least twice a week.
Wycombe was once the furniture capital of the country. It still might be, I don’t know. What I do know however, is that any chance of it becoming the best at anything ever again has sadly vanished. The only testament to Wycombe being good at furniture is a factory. But there are only so many chairs you can look at before they are all the same, even the two-inch high ones.
There’s a river too. The town of Wycombe has been built over it, a decision made some 100+ years ago. Presumably, the town planners thought that grey road was far more interesting. The only purpose the river serves now is as an extended bin i.e. people put rubbish in it.
In 2001, Wycombe got to the semi-final of the FA Cup. Semi-final means that there were only four teams left in the whole competition and Wycombe was one of them. Suffice to say, I was at that match, cheering on the ‘Choir boys’ (don’t ask) till the very end. Sadly Wycombe lost 2-1 to the might of Liverpool, but it was a testament to the support the Wycombe fans showed, that nearly half of the stadium was filled with blues fans, and the other half and a bit was occupied by the scousers. That is to say, until Wycombe lost and the majority of the crowd went back to their lives, not even batting an eyelid when advertisers are handing out free tickets to see a home game.
So, to conclude my essay about Wycombe is it really a nice place to live or even be? Any other person would complain about the shards of glass scattered among the floor of the bus stops (how nice it is of the council it is to replace the expensive glass). Anyone else would complain about the crime rate in Wycombe (don’t you just love ‘gang warfare’). And anyone else would complain about the number of burnt out cars that litter parks, causing a cloud of black smoke to rise above the scene. But for me, I’ll just walk on by, dog in hand and avoid the glass on the floor, not make eye contact with anyone I pass down ‘Dunn’s Ally’, sit back on one of the non-burnt-down park benches and enjoy watching the smoke rise from the next victim of the youths in Wycombe. You see, once you accept all of the bad things about Wycombe and you’re willing to live with them, Wycombe can be a really nice place to live. A strange conclusion to an essay that has spent nearly all of the time pointing out the bad points of Wycombe, but it’s hard to explain; for all of its bad points, I enjoy living there. And Wycombe has done that to me.
