Gasworks – I Walk Alone

Homeward bound

Thanks to the blue bin lorry driver’s rather rude and distracting interruption, I never did get round to the final instalment of my epic foggy walk on 11 January. To be honest, I toyed with the idea of leaving it as it was, with me walking through the beautiful misty parks and chatting with the park keeper. The trouble was, I had some wonderfully atmospheric photos I didn’t want to waste, and the area set the scene in both Plagued and Land Fit For Heroes. That area was Northam, and it is well worth a look around.

The rise and fall of the Railways

Gasworks train Britannia Road Southampton

Railways have played a pivotal role in my life. One of my earliest memories is of Pappy sitting me on the railway bridge at Bitterne to watch the trains, and my first full time job was in a British Rail Data Input Centre. It was there that I learned to touch type. It’s no surprise then, that the railway loomed large in my first two novels, Plagued and Land Fit For Heroes. My research told me that one of the big changes between now and then was the role the railways played in people’s lives. The main characters in both books lived in houses backing onto the railway line and the rumble of passing trains would have been a background to their lives. Hospital trains took Thomas across France and from Southampton Docks to Netley Hospital. Mary worried about her son, Eric, crossing the line on his way to school and she travelled on trains to visit Thomas in hospital. The trains rattled Laura’s windows until the General Strike came and quieted them. Percy and Lenny crossed the railway bridge and passed the busy Terminus Station every day on their way to and from work. The whole of Northam was crisscrossed with railway lines back then, but most are gone now.

Memory lane

My big writing project, inspired by my paternal grandparents, was completed (I promise all will be revealed soon, bear with me) and I had tentatively begun a second big writing project. This one was inspired by my mother’s parents. Where my memories of Pappy are still vivid and much of his story was told to me first hand, my memories of Nanny, Laura White, are far more hazy because she died when I was just four. I knew even less about my mother’s father, Leonard White. He died when Mum was barely more than a child and she had never talked about him much.

M	T	W	T	F	S	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31