Since I had come over to
Birmingham to go to Back In Time Live, I decided I might as well make a
complete geek holiday of it and visit the home of Zzap!64, Ludlow in
Shropshire. Zzap! wasn't actually born here but in Yeovil, Somerset.
However after three issues the magazine editorial offices were moved to
Ludlow to share the building with the Crash staff. It was in this building
(1/2 King Street) that Zzap! spent most of it's life.

After
saying goodbye to Mort and Jules at the train station in Birmingham, I
proceeded to cross the road to the 192 bus stop, the first step on my
journey to Zzap! Towers.

Unfortunately the bus trip was over two
hours long, but I divided the time between trying to sleep, listening to
Back In Time 3 (which on first listen, sounds extremely good) and reading
issue 30 of Commodore Scene (which was left forgotten in the VIP lounge
after everybody else had left the room at the end of the BIT Live
night).After travelling many miles and passing through many towns and
driving by many fields, I managed to get off at the correct stop and found
myself in downtown Ludlow.

Finding accommodation wasn't as easy as
I'd hoped, even although it was only Thursday. The first few places I
tried had none available. Fortunately after a bit of a trek around the
town I found lodgings in the "Blue Boar Inn" on Mill Street, very close to
the castle and also handily enough, close to King Street as well.

After chilling out for a while and checking out the vast array of
TV channels available in the room (four!), I decided to hit the town.

The first
stop was Ludlow castle which was pretty amazing. It's a Norman castle
built in the 1200's and most of the buildings are still intact, minus the
wooden bits such as roofs and floors etc. I always find it fascinating
walking through these old buildings imagining what it would have been like
to live in those times and how the buildings were back then.

After
strolling around the castle, I had a pleasant egg and cress roll in a
quiet but friendly cafe just by the castle grounds.

Now it was
time for the main event of the mission to Ludlow, to find the old Zzap
offices. However after walking about 10 meters down Castle Street towards
King Street, I passed by the Tourist Information, which had free entry to
a museum of Ludlow around the back, so I had to take a look at that first.

Did you
know that Ludlow was once a very well to do genteel place where the well
to do would come to live and spend their time? Or that the chief industry
at one time was glove making? Unfortunately both of those things passed,
the first due to the extension of the rail network, which caused the
genteel people to discover even nicer places to visit and the latter due
to gloves being produced cheaper in the east of England.

After
trekking another arduous 50 meters or so, I at last made it to King
Street. I first spotted an off-licence in the first building on the street
and had my suspicions that the old Newsfield offices may have been above
this, largely due to Gordon telling me about his many snack runs to an
license-licence below the offices.

I wanted to be sure that these
were the old offices though, so I went hunting for street numbers,
unfortunately the off-licence in question didn't have any numbers on it
but after a couple of walks up and down the street, I deduced that I was
in fact looking at 1-2 King Street

where many a year ago the townsfolk of Ludlow would have
remembered the common sight of bleary eyed young folk falling out of the
offices late at night talking in strange tongues about things like C64's
and parallax scrolling etc.

From the outside, the offices look
pretty non descript. The first set of floors is over the Victoria Wine
off-licence and the second set is over a Barclay's Bank. Unfortunately
there was nothing to show Zzap had ever been there, no plaques on the
walls of the buildings, there wasn't even a statue of Lloyd to be seen
anywhere!

I wasn't really expecting any remains of the Zzap
culture to be around but it really was nice to get a sense of what it was
like for the staff to work and live around Ludlow. After from its historic
significance in relation to Zzap, Ludlow is a very beautiful town and well
worth a visit to if you are in the area.

Just before I
finish this article, there's an amazing discovery I made the following day
after visiting King Street, which I must relate.

This discovery is
in connection to Lloyd! He still lives in Ludlow, apparently not wishing
to venture further out into the world after Newsfield and Impact closed
down.

Is he still working in the computer industry? Unfortunately
not, he now owns a pharmacy on Upper Galdeford. He is also as reclusive as
ever, he never actually works in the pharmacy and after talking to the
staff, I learned that even they only see him once a week when he gives
them their paychecks.

Trip made on 17th - 18th May 2001
by Iain

Time to Leave

After
being inspired by my trip to Ludlow, George from Birmingham decided to
make his own pilgrimage, here is his account of events.

"I so much
enjoyed the account of your trip to Ludlow that today I organised my own
pilgrimage to the former Newsfield offices. I really should have done this
sooner as I only live up the road in Birmingham. With my girlfriend and
our daughter for company we parked behind Tesco, close to the railway
station, and walked into the town.

What can I say, it was
overwhelming to stand outside the Victoria Wines and look up at the very
offices where it all happened. If only I could go back in time 15 years
and meet with Rignall, Liddon and co.

I checked out the back of
the building hoping to find some Zzap related grafitti but all I found
were clean walls and the barred windows of the bank. However this may soon
change thanks to your trip as during the day I saw two other sets of
people photographing the building.

I also have a snippet to
divulge about Lloyd Mangram. As we returned to our our car I noticed a
haulage firm close to the railway station called "Lloyds of Ludlow".
Coincidence...? Perhaps."

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