I think it was our cousins, and our Uncle Terry, who showed us the way. It may have even been after a football game across the river, but I shouldn’t think so. Either way, one night ended with us climbing the maintenance stairs under the East Street bridge, which spanned the Bremer River in Ipswich, the town I grew up in. Running the full length of the underside of the bridge were catwalks used by maintenance crews to, well, maintain the bridge. And on the metal struts and cross beams under the bridge was a blanket of the most fascinating, most obscene graffiti I think I’d ever seen. I was about 11 or so, and this was – quite simply – amazing.
There were jokes, there were limericks, there were baudy invitations to call certain people for a good time (or, simply, to have their dick sucked). This was eye-opening, to be sure. We spent a good hour or two roaming back and forth, with the sounds of traffic crossing the bridge over our heads, and the gentle lapping of the dirty river water beneath us.
We went there, just us kids, once again after that but it didn’t have quite the same magic. It was daylight for one thing, and we were also spotted by someone if I recall – another group of kids, I think – so some of the excitement was taken away; it wasn’t secret anymore.
Soon after, the catwalks were closed off, and we couldn’t get back up there anymore. I like to think the graffiti is still there, 25-odd years later.