a peculiarity or quirk to the way i look at things can be illustrated whenever the word Sheffield is mentioned to me, look you see. possibly. this is, but of course, all about word (or name) association, to be sure.
when one hears the word Sheffield there are all sorts of things that come to mind. steel, for sure, is undoubtedly a common thought. Owls or Blades too, or if you like Wednesday or United. it is entirely possible that some may consider Joe Cocker, where others might quite like to think of Pulp in general or Jarvis Cocker in particular, overlooking or excluding of course his unfortunate earlier celebration of Sir Jimmy Savile esq.
for me the term Sheffield makes me instantaneously, or quickly, consider the Sheffield Shield. this, or that, as you hardly need me to say, is the premier domestic cricket tournament held in Australia.
with this somewhat, or at the least partially in mind, i elected to travel to Sheffield, then. mostly of my own accord, or at least for compelling reason with the course of the journey being my own choosing. this was all in the early stages of January, or if you will about a month ago, or a month prior to me publishing this account.
my experience of Sheffield was, i confess, limited to one, maybe two train platforms at the train station there. if it so happens to be that Sheffield has more than one train station, well then to clarify it was the one which is just called Sheffield, as you can see in the boss selfie above.
if you have ever spent any quality time at a train station then you will surely know that they don't really "do" word association or any other such celebration of the area. whilst hardly all no-nonsense and just down to business, it is true that the remit of a train station is to enable people to get on and get off the correct trains. if they spent time asking people "what do you think about when you hear our name" then i dare say, speculate even, that they would be taken to task and admonished for not having sufficient focus on train processes and procedures.
but, still, some effort and work is made. the above was made visible to members of the public who happened to be on the relevant platform. this is some wood which was found washed up after the terrible flooding experienced at the station on December 21 1991.
one, i hope and bravely trust, would really hope that no such flooding had ever occurred. but, it did, and it was in this context and this sense a lovely gesture that the proprietors, custodians and managers of the train station made no attempt to shy away from or otherwise try to deny history.
as an accidental, and indeed brief, visitor to Sheffield i did, as it so happens, find this quick glance and look at some of the history of the place interesting and fascinating.
did i explore or look at any other areas of Sheffield? no. this was not for any aversion to the place, please note. it was just a case of me being very much "in transit". with this in mind, there was no practical way to leave the station with the time i had between trains.
would i one day consider a return to Sheffield? perhaps to specifically see that place alone, and indeed discover it as the misleading title of this post suggested? undoubtedly yes, i would. but for now, though, i suppose this shall do.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment