The end of another working week, although that doesn’t really mean much nowadays, especially in my line of work. It’s a very long time since my week was Monday – Friday, 9 to 5. September 1997 to be precise…

The weather here in the Calder Valley has turned stormy. The temperature has really dropped but the wind has gained in strength, gusting across the valley, leaving me in fear for my garden where the Lupins are looking lovely but exposed. It’s quite entertaining in one way – watching the wind battering the trees and bushes I can see from my back office. The Blue and Coal tits are still managing to land on the bird feeder outside the window, but some of the bigger birds are starting to struggle as the gusts catch them.

Today’s not been the best of days. Emotions and feelings can be a bit of a roller-coaster during lockdown (or what approximates it now) and that’s how I felt today. Sometimes it’s hard to remain optimistic in the face of everything that’s happening and the feeling that – politically – we are going through extraordinary times. America is in flames due to riots over the latest death of a black American at the hands of the police and the ‘President’ is both utterly useless  – and fanning the flames.  Meanwhile, we have our own Clown in charge. How on earth did it come to this? Still, Johnson’s ‘proud’ of the fact we’ve the highest Covid-19 death toll in Europe so who are we to question his judgement (when he actually turns up for work).

I suppose I’m feeling a little put out as today a group of us should have been flying to Berlin. After we had such a great time in Belgium the ‘6 from the 6’ had booked a few days in the German capital. It’s a city I really enjoy (especially the old East) so I was really looking forward to it. In fact, I would have been back again a few months later for the bi-annual ‘Innotrans’ rail fair but that’s been postponed until 2021. As things stand at the moment I’m not sure I’m going to make it out of the ‘septic isle’ before the end of the year – or whilst we still remain part of the EU. Oh, yes – remember Brexit? That’s still unresolved…

So, instead of enjoying Berlin with friends, I’m kicking my heels at home, staying safe and wading through more old slide scans. Ho hum…On the bright side. I’m nearing the end of phase 1 of that project, which feels like it’s taken forever. This weekend I’ll have the 1999-2000 rail album done, which only leaves me with (I think) two to do. Away from all this we did have a pleasant interlude as Friday night is quiz night when a group of us from the ‘Big 6’ have an hour together pretending we’re back in the pub! With the weather being rather less than favourable everyone was Zooming in from indoors this week. Even so, it was a lovely interlude that stretched the little grey cells (as an Agatha Christie character was wont to say) and gave us all a bit of welcome social interaction.

OK, forget all the other stuff, it’s picture time. Here’s one of the latest scans and another trip down memory lane – although it won’t mean a lot to many people. This is the old steam locomotive depot at Southport shortly before demolition back in 2000 after the museum had closed. Back in the very early 1970s I was one of the founder members of ‘Steamport’, the society which got together to save the 6-road depot and turn it into a museum. Many of us put a lot of time and effort into trying to make it a success but it never took off. On the bright side, we did buy the land which was sold years later for a tidy sum when the museum moved lock, stock and barrel to Preston, so our efforts weren’t all in vain. Here’s a potted history of the depot and the project care of Wikipedia.

See those red doors on the front of the shed? They’re not original. The old shed never had doors. The ones you see came from the old Meols Cop car sheds – a railway works a few miles away. A few of us towed some of those through the streets of Southport on old metal wheeled railway parcels trollies after we’d gas-axed them off the derelict shed! Funny what you remember, isn’t it? I vividly recollect pulling/pushing one of those doors on the trolley with a few other stalwarts, partly because I remember coming down with a really sore throat!

Memories…

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