Capitol Centre

This nifty chap, smoking a pipe and sporting a scarf, is on the side of the Capitol Centre. On this site were previously some Victorian buildings which, by the mid 1980s, were well past their best. The council demolished the lot and built this generic shopping centre. The only things to survive were three Dutch-style tiles, like this one, and which were replaced in situ, and the name - this was also the site of the Capitol Cinema and theatre. A freezing fleapit when I was a kid, it still retained some of its old grandeur, such as the enormous chandelier which still hung in the cinema. It had hosted The Beatles to the Bay City Rollers (my mum wouldn't let me go, how I sulked) A friend remembers going to see Marc Bolan when she was 10 and her mother arranged for her to sit on the stage while Marc sang a sing to her - I don't think she ever lived up to that moment.

Other wonders: the basement restaurant, The Continental. It had a mural! You could have steak! The sophistication! Also the Casa Gil which had once been called The Pig & Whistle & which it was said was once a topless bar (but where would you put your pint?). We stopped going there because we said it was 'full of kids' (we were 18. Ah the folly of youth). BUT, I will never, ever forgive the council for demolishing The Lexington. I started going to the restaurant on the ground floor when I was in my early teens. It was one of those American type restaurants that were popular in the 70s, retro Coca-Cola mirrors, Tiffany lampshades, proper burgers. By my later teens, I had gravitated to the bar downstairs where the punks, skins, New Romantics and Goths hung out. God, I loved it. But we had to use the same loos as as those visiting the restaurant. Many the time, some poor mum & child would be confronted with a crowd of girls frantically backcombing, giving off the gentle scent of amyl nitrate. The narrow stairs were a bugger if you were wearing winklepicker buckle boots too...