Hilton and Mears: The branchline…
Were not these branch-line memories themselves a sign of our own changing humanity?
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| Prose by Chris Mears / Photo by James Hilton |
Held in our stories with the fondness of memory like a Great Aunt we look forward to visiting from a village we haven't lived in for a long time.
Their lives lived every day. Not just on special ‘tween times that reunite us for one celebration that becomes another.
Their lives lived every day and sometimes as unintentionally singular prose. Private by circumstance.
Branch-line railways reaching out from the main trunk to offer a home to birds and bees and us and we and cups of tea and biscuits please.
We can't always be the place we're going and sometimes where we come from.
The train waiting on platform three takes us back to where our path began. It's rails our humble path in the story of our name.
Nostalgia is often not for the past we knew, but for the past that is just slightly out of reach, or, at best, remembered through the unreliable filter of very early memories. Dangerous when talking about politics, but delightful when we are talking about railways.
ReplyDeleteHence for me, in standard gauge, it is the last days of steam and the transition from green to blue. I can remember how special a Mr Kiplings apple pie or a slice of fruitcake could seem when eaten on a train.
On the narrow gauge it is that slighty earlier period, that I only knew from my father's old guidebooks. A time of fuzzy low contrast B&W snapshots that often disguised the reality .
My Great Aunt lived in Cheltenham. she lived for betting on the horses...
Great Aunt - that’s a classic last line James. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, always appreciated.
DeleteWith a double dose of nostalgia, "We know a song about that, don't we boys and girls?"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6OHD2uCpfU
I remember hearing this, very much of its time, and curiously very ‘British’ - do we have a national interest in nostalgia!?
DeleteHi James
ReplyDeleteA very John Betjeman-esque piece of writing from Chris. Nostalgic for a way of travelling which may have really disappeared before your railcar got to roam the rails- none the worse for that maybe. I think nostalgia can be good in taking us back to an era we may or may not have remembered but does sometimes get in the way of appreciating what we have now. I do think that your photo on the module really compliments the writing
Best regards
Alan
Thanks Alan. Nostalgic but timeless somehow… and plenty of country byways and branches still survive today. Just need to know where to look…
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