It Was Bigger In My Mind

The memory is a curious beast. Not literally, obviously. I don’t have an inquisitive cat perched within my skull. I was being all like metaphorical and stuff. No one wants a skull cat.

It’s funny how some things get built up into something of significance within your own mind when, in reality, the “truth” is something far more pedestrian. I’ll give you a case in point (otherwise this would be a rather short post with just a couple of vague sentences - sure, I could try and pass that off as a post but let’s give you a little bit more than that).

When I was but a mere youngling with a mane of beautifully thick but ultimately short-lived hair, the parents would occasionally take the Brother and me (often accompanied by the paternal grandparents) out for a meal for a treat. We had a regular restaurant that we would frequent and that particular eatery was known as Chefs Delight. Hmmm, you may be wondering, what sort of cuisine would this establishment provide to its dining customers with a name such as Chef’s Delight? Well, it was mostly consisted of all day breakfasts, grilled meats, omelettes and largely chips as an accompaniment.

Aha, I hear you say, it’s a greasy spoon-style cafe/diner. Yes, it is (and, in my mind at least, a perfectly fine one). That’s not how I viewed it as a child, though. This was a restaurant. Somewhere I went to with grown ups and ordered grown up food. My regular order (I am after all a creature of habit)? Minute steak, well done (I was yet to discover the delights of properly cooked steak) with a side order of chips and an ice cream float to drink. I like to think that I still maintain those levels of health consciousness while dining out…

The point here is that, to my tiny little mind, this wasn’t (and I mean no disrespect to Chef’s Delight here) a traditional high street diner that you might find dotted around most of the UK. To me back then, it was a special destination, somewhere that we went for a treat, somewhere that served me ice cream in my drink (to be honest, I still think that’s a great idea).

I went past it recently and I saw it for what it was - a traditional high street diner that you might find dotted around most of the UK. Intellectually, of course I knew this to be the case. There was a part of my mind that couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing, though, with the hazy image of this being an iconic destination of my youth. It just seemed... a lot more ordinary.

I didn't go in - largely because I was being driven past it and couldn’t stop - but also because I prefer the version that sits in my curious memory beast. Sometimes you can nostalgically recapture what once sat only in your head and sometimes, it’s best to just leave it there...