FALLING SOMEWHERE AS RAIN

 This post finds me returning to the confluence of poetry and photography once more as Philip Larkin's marvellous writings find a reflection in a theme I am often drawn to - Railways. The blog itself takes its name from one of Larkins' lines from the beautiful ' Whitsun Weddings ', which finds the author in a railway carriage one summers day in the 1950's. Larkin had the gift of making the most ordinary and mundane situations seem hugely important and striking and this poem highlights his way of picking out snapshots of life from the rush and bustle of the everyday - as the line says: sun destroys t he interest of what’s happening in the shade, I enjoy rail travel, even though it is much changed since Larkin's day and far less romantic. However, it is a great opportunity to grab snapshots of the journey, which might otherwise be missed as the train speeds through the city and countryside. To this end, I use my iphone and a variety of different camera apps to gra...

I saw an advert for the 1970’s futurist magazine Omni, many years ago and it consisted primarily of a statement, which read thus: “The Past is gone. The Present, lost as it arrives. There is only Tomorrow” These words stuck with me, for a number of reasons, as I do enjoy the futuristic and science-fiction view of things, but also, like the Roman god Janus, I also revere the past. One face forever turned forward, but another perpetually looking back.  For this reason, the phrase from Omni magazine at once excited, but also saddened me and feels even more profound as I have aged myself, beyond the midpoint, where I have much more life behind me than I can possibly hope to look forward to. It's said that Times' Arrow flies in one direction only, forward into the future, so, without hope or chance of practical time travel, how can we look back at the past? We can extrapolate as to how the future may develop, but the past is already formed and laid out behind us like an invisible fr...

 A few years after my parents passed away, I was sorting out some old photographs. Historically, we had always had about four large albums, which held all the family photos dating back to about 1960. Prior to this, camera's were not something my family were able to afford, as far as I could tell and the ones we did have were something of a precious novelty. Having two sisters, the albums were divided up between us and the one I had contained mostly photographs of my own childhood, which was an idyllic time and leafing through the snaps, could quickly transport me back to that wonderful era. Most of the photographs, I was familiar with and recalled almost every instance of the shot being taken, but amongst them all, I came across a small square print of me and my dad, standing ankle deep in the sea at what I reasoned must be West Kirby beach on the Wirral.  Seeing it, I wept openly - something I had struggled to do properly at the time of my fathers death, or later - but someth...