A Golden Labyrinth...

Further to last night's post and the madcap dream sequence that led to the idea for a game/story mentioned therein, I was mulling over not just that particular unconscious reverie, but many such dream sequences that have inhabited my sleep over many years, particularly in my childhood and youth. One characteristic feature of my dreamtime - and this might [even probably] be general to most people's dream-spaces - is the labyrinth, in some form or another: a [virtual] place of mystery on which much of human myth is built, from ancient times. Who, even in modern times does not enjoy a maze, either virtual or physical?

This morning, I was mulling over where I'd got both my fascination for a good labyrinth from and how it has impacted on my dreamworld over the last seven decades, when Steve rang about our upcoming visit  to see them in Yorkshire. Talking to him about this maze/dream thing I realised that where the two of us grew up - Birmingham - and in particular the city centre and the underpasses, museums and canal tow-paths that I liked so much to roam from the age of seven or so until I left the city - for Gogledd Cymru - for good in my mid-twenties, was indeed a series of interconnected labyrinths.

In particular, the one place that has had more influence on me than any other - in so many ways - is the Birmingham Museum of Science & Industry, at least in its original incarnation. I can't find a decent image of it from that era, so pictured is when they welcomed the locomotive "City of Birmingham" to the museum in the 1960s. The museum still holds a very magical spot in my heart: it captivated and educated me in equal measure. It was not deliberately preachy or directed in its approach to passing on to future generations the extraordinary achievements of the often quite ordinary people who created the modern world through their engineering skills and sheer guile. It instead, and I think because of its haphazard curatorial style, allowed a young enquiring mind the space for fascination and entertainment, and most importantly learning and invention. The modern incarnation of the place "The Thinktank", is to my mind over-curated and overly pedagogical in its approach...

The building was originally, and appropriately, an old industrial space, and the exhibits were shoe-horned into it on a pretty much ad hoc basis as artefacts were accumulated; which gave the whole edifice a mysterious and - labyrinthine - quality, that never failed to fascinate, no matter how many times we visited. In my case, this was every Saturday throughout my junior school years and into my teens. A jumble of both huge and small spaces, connected via ricketty stairs or suspended corridors, spread over floors both full and mezzanine; the place was simply a joy to inhabit and the memory of it still informs me to this day...