And in the dream, I’m transfixed, like I always was. And it’s a warm Friday night a long time ago. A Friday of my youth. A Friday night at the Maitland Trots.

And this was my theatre. This was performance. This was drama.

This was how we lived.

And I could hear the trumpet. The crackle of the microphone. The sense of occasion in the voice of Maitland’s great race caller, Ned Wilcher.

His signature phrase, ”strands fly back off and running ...”

Such poetry. A kind of concert, a song sung to us all, a narrative detailing the brief life of a race.

The lights and horses and sounds are mesmerising. And for just a few hours, the dark and endless sky above me is held at bay by the sound and light of the trots.

And to that light comes the everywhere moths and the good, and not so good, people of the town.

And the camphor laurels near the Bloomfield Street pavilions are so amazingly green and beautiful against the darkening night sky.

And it’s all so vivid and glorious dear reader, and can you see it and feel it too?

The trots made the town alive. It was time when, with the exception of Thursday night shopping, Maitland shut down at 5pm. Yes, the old river town was not the pulsating city of excitement that defines its after dark character today - oh no!

The Friday trots gave the town a tonic. They were an elixir for workers and families, and young people too. They were a place we could all go together.

And in my dream I’m with my mum, up in the old Oak Stand, gazing at the rushing horses as they round the final bend, drivers urging them on, whistling and yelling, before they sail down to the winning post.

And then the numbers are semaphored up on the old board. The all-clear siren … time to start again.

And down in the betting ring I can smell Ardath smokes hanging in the air. See the sharp eyes of the bookies on their stands and hundreds of men in desert boots huddling together, united in the quest to separate the bagmen from their money.

“Board-odds,” they shout. “About to go.” A plunge begins and fists filled with hard-earned money: green, purple, red and an occasional ‘custard’ rush through the crowd, lunging over to get the price they have patiently waited for.

Then the hissing and cajoling of the punters, as they metaphorically drive their horses home. The shouting, the cheer of victory and the cursing of another failed attempt …

And in the background of all this, children are playing, while teenagers fall in and out of love near the giant fig trees; and the Chinese cooks have come down from High Street restaurants after their shift to join the rhythm of the night.

And in this lovely dream, when the trots are done, it’s a hamburger at Steve’s cafe opposite the Currency Lass, then home to Lee Street and watch, on black and white TV, Dave Allen, Pot Black and the replays of the Harold Park races.

And that’s the way it was …

And so it went.

Goodnight.

Morpeth: a charm of its own