On Monday 1st May, it felt like there were many occasions to mark at once. Summer was actually in the air, and on time for once this spring. It also marked the tenth anniversary of launching my freelance writing business. I’ve learned a lot over the years, and have met many remarkable people. I also felt ready for a challenge, and to connect with nature and my own creativity. So I caught the tram and tram train to Rotherham Parkgate shopping centre and walked back home along the canal.
I will be leading a similar but much shorter walk on Sunday 14th May, and hopefully this post will give you a taste for walking creatively! https://www.thewritersworkshop.co.uk/events/canal-walk-and-nature-writing-workshop-wanne
The walk I’m leading for the Writers Workshop will take around two hours at a leisurely pace with time for writing en route and sticks to the towpath, which is entirely traffic free. In contrast, Monday’s walk was an epic adventure including a detour around New York football stadium (the home of Rotherham United before you think I really got lost.)
Starting as I waited for the tram, I wrote notes that turned into poems on my phone, using Google docs. I also took lots of photos. Sometimes I sat down at a particular location and took notice of the things that were happening around me. Sometimes I wanted to tell the story of where I was, and some poems just happened spontaneously as things happened. It’s interesting that when I write poems as they are happening, often something will come along at the right time to resolve the poem.
As a word of caution, if you are planning on doing this on a long walk – my walk was around twelve miles – I would recommend bringing a mobile powerpack with you, as my phone was almost out of battery by the time I arrived home.
Here’s more information about the canal: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/enjoy-the-waterways/canal-and-river-network/sheffield-and-tinsley-canal
Anticipation
Waiting for a tram on the first of May –
birdsong and distant traffic.
Quiet enough to hear footsteps.
Sunshine on dandelions,
hanging branches reaching twigs down
to brush the cow parsley,
some kind of plane tree I haven’t noticed before,
Unfurling leaves, dry but velvety,
Like the back of a baby mouse.
Tram Ride
The tram slides through familiar ground,
Aldi and Wynsors world of shoes.
A man shouts at his friend as he gets on,
almost holds up the tram. Heart racing.
Friendly conductor. £2 all the way to Parkgate.
Bargain! Hope I make the connection at the cathedral.
Horse chestnut tree lighting its blossom candles,
huge green hands grown overnight.
Some trees still almost bare,
but catching up.
Glossop road deserted,
Remembering student days,
Spilling out of Bar One and onto West Street,
Dodging the hen night parties,
Until one night, we became one of them.
Cathedral Square
Goldfinches call in Cathedral Square.
The man who’s mate shouted earlier
is shouting about a borrowed fiver
The city’s homeless, operating in their own world.
A pug sniffs the foot of a low wall
and grins at me when he’s dragged away.
Living his best life, joyously waddling.
Ghostly organ music drifts in the air.
Tram Train
The tram train is quiet.
The recorded voice message somehow subdued,
The doors beep and close
as the cathedral chimes half ten,
and we’re off, slowly, tentatively feeling our way along the tracks to castle square.
Boarded up old Primark shop,
Torn posters and graffiti.
Bright paint of Castle Gate bridge,
leading nowhere.
Empty grand buildings from Victorian to ultra modern.
Once over the bridge, the tram train unleashes its power,
restraining itself at Hyde Park,
An athlete, warming up.
Now it’s flying, having fun.
The voice gets more jaunty and warns us to hold tight,
as if we’re at a fun fair.
Brakes scrape and no one gets on at the next stop.
Leans around the corner like a biker hugging the road
Catching the sharp bend jerkily like a ghost train,
heading to the ghost town of Attercliffe.
90s technology park looking dated,
new houses cluster around here now,
with a village cosiness but all mod cons,
a drive to charge your electric car.
Arena and stadium now
Olympic legacy park on the site of Don Valley Stadium
Where I watched U2 and the Chilli Peppers.
Centertainment car park empty,
Wincobank hill in the distance,
Houses ribboned with woodland,
Huge blue mass of IKEA.
Meadowhall’s green glass domes,
a signpost to Timbuktu.
Cyclists passing.
Car parks look empty.
The river surface is glassy.
Scrapes and judders as we change direction, then stop
under the huge weight of the double decker motorway bridge
No one seems concerned.
And now we drift along, silently,
Onto the rails.
The tram train runs like it’s greased with butter.
Past woods and stacks of containers,
Magna science centre in the old steelworks,
Bobbing up and down gently, speeding past mills,
Steel recyclers and the New York stadium.
This is Rotherham.
Spire of the minster dark against the white clouds
Next stop Parkgate.
Accelerating to warp speed
past silos and corrugated iron,
CCTV towers, piles of gravel
saw tooth roofed factories,
Still, rippling water.
The other side of Parkgate
On the other side of the railway tracks,
chiffchaffs call.
The path is soft earth and grass.
As the tram train returns without me.
A sharp, fresh smell blows on the breeze.
Traffic recedes to a gentle hush.
Water reflecting blue boat paint
Dimpling gently in the wind.
Something stirs to nibble a slice of bread,
floating among cut grass and apple blossom petals at the end of the dock,
Nudging the bread as it takes a bite.
Woodland clearing
Smell of fast food fries fills the air
then disappears, replaced by the delicate floral scent of cow parsley.
Woodland clearing scattered with jigsaw pieces and burned springs.
Wren repeats its sweet call next to the flyover.
A dismembered purple tennis ball,
bridal arches of bramble and wild rose,
birds safe to sing in their sanctuary –
song thrush’s creative stream of impressions
and blackbird’s sweet melancholy melody.
Smaller songbirds contributing their twittering trills,
with the soft hush of the breeze in new leaves.
Abandoned
Abandoned boatyard,
gently rusting, rotting hills,
DIY projects given up on.
Gates twined with nettles,
eerie yet peaceful.
Factory
Martins swoop, wheel and chatter
in the stately wake of an approaching duck.
Then the air hums and smells like hot rubber
Busy factory whirs constantly echoing against buildings,
building up a constant ringing him, sighing hiss, rumble and fizz.
Forbidden
Thwarted in Rotherham.
Take a diversion, past the glass factory
and through a flickering underpass.
Getting caught up in the football crowd,
optimistic in red and white.
The canal path is blocked,
An elaborate diversion is suggested
on a sign blocking the path.
It feels like summer now,
industrial and urban.
I improvise, following directions
of my own invention,
that get me back on the towpath,
through level crossings and spooky
litter-strewn lanes,
a path scarred with remains of fires.
Back onto a forbidden but well used
stretch of towpath.
The great outdoors
It’s the great outdoors!
No more barriers –
just silver birches
unfurling bracken.
The urban is receding again now,
the canal, a different world.
Past a smallholding with a small flock of goats
cropping the glass contentedly.
The smallest kids bleats insistently
as a collie passes by, pretending it’s not a wolf.
None of the other goats pay it any attention .
Tinsley Viaduct
Constant roar of traffic,
people and things going places.
North to South, South to North,
Gripping the steering wheel and concentrating.
Below, seedheads float aimlessly,
Families cycle, spot fish in the water.
Birds sing louder to drown out the motors.
Tinsley Marina
The top of a flight of locks,
domesticity of moored boats
With rotary washing lines.
A fisherman has set his shelter up for the day,
casting his line into dark green water.
Seraphic Academy
On a deserted, industrial street,
There’s a familiar shape of a Victorian
Sheffield school.
It’s a school again now,
Doors open, despite it being a bank holiday.
Are the children training to be angels?
Attercliffe canal moorings
Attercliffe canal moorings,
no boats are moored,
just some people fishing,
set up well for the day.
Water drifts, fish plop,
distant roar of traffic,
and the low hum of electricity,
pylons overhead.
Even a siren doesn’t drown out the birds.
Suddenly a shout for a net.
A fisherman struggles with something
large and thrashing in the water weed.
A pike, two feet long
They lay it out, take photos
Before lowering it into the water again
Trapped in a keep net,
They say they will let him go.
It won’t be fooled again.
Worksop Road aqueduct
Who would know it was here from the road,
intersecting with the railway bridge?
If you weren’t paying attention from the canal
you would forget there is just air underneath.
Attercliffe Footbridge 6a
How long has it been
since anyone last crossed
Attercliffe footbridge 6a?
Heading straight into a foundry,
through a steel shuttered doorway.
Rusty paint and perforated steel,
A daily commute now forgotten.
Magnet Fishing
Magnet fishing by Cadmon bridge –
they’ve found a cheese knife,
ready to use. It looks unfinished,
a little rough around the edges,
maybe a discarded imperfection.
It’s been in the water a long time
Walking home
I’ve reached the canal’s end
on the home stretch now,
legs aching, they still bend,
carrying me the final steps I need to go.
On this day, summer arrived,
A day to do us proud.
I’m glad I strived, and have nearly arrived.
Time outside, feet on the ground.
A chance to reconnect,
I took time to stretch.
A day I will look back and recollect
the dandelions and vetch.
Anne Grange Writing 
Absolutely brilliant 🐦⬛🍁🦋