Decline - The 1980s and 90s
In 1980 the Cairncrosses’ lettering was obscured by a large white aerosoled anarchy symbol and the plinth was beginning to look generally rather shabby, as this photo of the poet Tom Raworth shows.
Photo of Tom and Valarie Raworth courtesy of www.poltroonpress.com
Judging from the state of the paint on the fish, compared with the shot from 1980, this photograph must have been taken some years later, perhaps in the mid-eighties? The spraypaint has been cleaned off but the paintwork is beginning to look very worn.
Photographer unknown
The Humbrol paints lasted well though and the Cairncrosses' decoration survived the eighties, as far as I recall. But eventually the Council covered over the 1973 colours with a dull shade of faux verdigris, thus hiding not only the blues, reds and yellows but the name too.
My visits back to Cambridge were more infrequent in the nineties but whenever I was there and crossed Parker's Piece I was struck by how neglected the lamppost seemed to be; and yet the name was always visible. "Reality Checkpoint" had certainly become firmly lodged in the folk memory. Despite Council attempts to remove it, the name continued to be written in marker pen or Tipp-Ex, or scratched into the layers of flaking gloss. If you passed the lamppost at any time, "Reality Checkpoint" would be visible on it somewhere and sometimes on all four sides.
At one point in the mid-nineties, according to Graham Chainey writing in the London Magazine ("The Other Cambridge", 1995), "Reality Checkpoint" was scratched on one side of the plinth, while on the opposite side was scrawled "The Comfortably Numb" – another nice Pink Floyd reference. No reason for this is given.
Above: competitors in a three-legged race across Parker's Piece, 1991. Photo: Cambridge News
Below: a still from Crown And Country - Series 1: Cambridge (1997)
In 1998, the graffiti became a brass plaque. According to cam.misc this was by Adrian Custard, who bought a plate with "Reality Checkpoint" inscribed on it from Lion Yard in December 1997 and the following month fixed this to the lamppost with araldite and superglue, "as a tribute to the tradition of Reality Checkpoint". It remained there for six months, until someone removed it.
Shortly afterwards the Council began planning a refurbishment of the lamppost, which it carried out in 1999, I believe with funding from the Cambridge Preservation Society. By this point it was in a poor state of repair again. Much of the metal was bare of paint and several of the light shades cracked and broken.
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