You're Not Alone

The Obsessive Diary

So the story goes I danced on his feet. Did I? There comes a point in childhood tales when fact and fiction merge. They are flash cards; nothing before, nothing after. I remember a room full of adults, I remember light brown brogues, the pattern of indentations, an invitation to stand on them, his hands held out to me. I remember being lifted into a waltz. Did I know it was David Bowie? Of course not. I was a child. His name, who he was, would have meant nothing to me. I was over at my friend’s house whose parents knew everyone, it wasn’t uncommon to meet Shirley McLaine on the stairs. But is it true that the God Himself took me in his arms and for moments which last forever we were connected? I’m going to have to do some fact-checking. M, if you’re reading this, call me.

While we’re waiting, let’s go to The Lightroom in Kings Cross, an area transformed out of all recognition where other flashcards present memories of squats and raves and cars slowing down in the early hours along roads with no pavements, sex workers leaning, a privacy and abandonment in central London, all ours, no one wanted it, not then. Built for the Great Northern Railway, coal delivered along the canal and shunted into engines screaming north, these vast brick warehouses had fallen into emptiness and rats. Keep Out. But we didn’t. There’s some great footage by Annie Macmanus in Who Killed The Night? of the area as the developers moved in, the death of the scene that filled nineties, clubs and parties shunted out for what we have now. Go there. Tell me what you think.

It is clean brick and sober. It is huge friendly arrows encouraging to me to Explore this way! Bars and restaurants in ordered ranks, the stench and smear of coal and choking coke replaced by clean clothes in windows. A small cinema screen set in a huge box on the edge of the canal is watched by lazing eyes leant on over-sized pillows scattered colourfully on double-height steps as if all of it was made for giants. Rows of ground level fountains spray fresh water to the delight of toddlers in waterproof nappies. There is Courtyard Eating and Fashion.

The Lightroom declares, David Bowie: You’re Not Alone, but set within this newly crowded, socially cohesive, shopping-entertainment Mecca that by all measure of commercial data has improved an area from “no use” to “use” the singularity of Bowie stands out. It feels to me the thing which he brought continues to reckon him very much alone indeed.

“If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

David Bowie