I was in a very normal park today. Imaginatively called Peacock Meadow but squeezed between large industrial estates and some housing. The rain took me by surprise and I took refuge in this bandstand style shelter. It featured entirely teenage style graffiti and some of the comments and images were both timeless and entirely up to date. There was a good selection of cartoon penises and some statements that made me laugh out loud. I was a bit surprised by the amount of homophobia and racism expressed. I would have hoped younger people had greater tolerance and more open minds. But street art wherever I find it fascinates me.

The colours were fabulous, even if the opinions expressed lacked imagination or ambition beyond having sex with other peoples mothers, putting phone numbers out in the public domain, or commenting on school friends erogenous zones. All the same old stuff I experienced in the bus station of the town where I went to school. But one statement was so of it’s time no one would have understood it 20 years ago.

There was also a good bit of peeling paint.

I think I have managed to avoid the more controversial or unpleasant elements. Unfortunately the examples of clever wit that made me laugh came into that category but here are some of the colours and patterns.

I realised that my little village of Gosfield in North East Essex must have been very well behaved. There were loads of teenagers kicking around with not too much to do. I can’t think of anywhere that was given the Graffiti treatment. The only exception was the pews in the church. The back ones were habitually used by boys from a fairly low-grade Independent school, there were a lot of penises and expletives in that church. The funny thing is that history gives graffiti gravitas. If those words and illustrations, either in the church of my home village or the fake bandstand yesterday had been carved by medieval youth the etchings and carvings would be preserved as a tourist hot spot. The subject matter would be virtually the same.

And why the name Peacock Meadow. Google is a wonderful thing.

In 1719 Sidney Strode produced an “Account of the Strode Family” in which he makes reference to duel fought between Richard Strode and Sir Philip Courteney of Loughtor. The duel was fought on the green at the lower end of what was marshmeadow, Colebrook. And what were they fighting over, a family feud, an issue of honour, or a young lady? No, they were arguing over a peacock killed by a servant.