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For several years, I've completed a Writing Challenge with many people all over the globe. We write something inspired by prompts for 21 days, plus an introduction. This year, the prompts are about place, and I've chosen the River Porter in Sheffield.  These posts touch upon the river's history but they're also about what it means to me.  I'm not following the river in any order except that the first 10 posts are about the Porter Valley and the second 10 posts are about the Porter in the city.  I hope readers will participate and I have a couple of challenges; see the paragraphs in bold towards the end.

I must confess that writing about the River Porter has shown me that I know simultaneously too much and too little about the river.

Too little because there’s loads of expertise about the river in several academic disciplines.  There’s natural history, geology, geography, industrial history and the history of the City of Sheffield.  Many people know more about the Porter than I do, and sometimes I feel my writing about the Porter doesn’t do justice to any of these topics.

I’m also finding I know too much from, for example, reading interpretation boards and online material about the river.  There’s little point in repeating what has already been written.  I’m aiming for the parallels between my life story and the story of this river and this city.  Our environment forms us and so it’s not just my story but hundreds of other stories and experiences of people who encounter this river. 

It’s sometimes hard to be aware of this kind of thing.  The river is culverted over much of its length or hidden behind buildings.  When they stumble upon it, I suspect many people don’t know which river it is – it took me some time to work it out. 

Our relationship with the Porter and the other rivers in the city is very different to what it was for our ancestors.  In the photo at the top of this post, you see the Porter heading under a bridge.

This is the Bramall Lane Bridge.  If you are a football supporter, you’ll know about Bramall Lane, the home of the oldest professional football ground in the world.  To get there today from here, you have to cross a dual carriageway.  Bramall Lane no longer comes over here.  The stonework you see was the top of the bridge and people walked across it to enter Sheffield.  For a period, the Porter was the town boundary.  The side the photo was taken from is … erm … Little Sheffield.  This was countryside (albeit industrialised) and so crossing a river was no surprise.  (Little Sheffield still exists and it is now part of the inner city!)

Now, imagine you’re walking along Bramall Lane towards Sheffield and happen to have about your person a dead dog or cat.  You’re looking for somewhere to put it.  Where do you think?  If you study the photo of the interpretation board below (sadly defaced – it seems care for the environment has never been a priority), you’ll see this was a serious problem.

Indeed, it seems this problem stretched down to the River Sheaf and then along to the River Don.  The area around what is now the Midland Station, where the Sheaf flowed was, before the rivers were controlled, a marsh with open sewers containing dogs, cats and sewage.  And yes many people lived and worked there.

It’s hard to imagine.  The open area in the top photo is only a few yards long, yet it serves as an oasis for wildlife.  There are plans to open up more stretches on the grounds, it's good for the environment.  We should not assume the river was always a positive amenity. 

How might posts of this type be used for marketing?  Think about how you might use this post or a post like it to promote your business.  I add a few thoughts after each post, like this:

Did you imagine yourself walking into Sheffield, carrying your deceased pet?  Did people really bring their dead animals to the river?  How else would they get in there?  This is one approach you can use in marketing copy to help people visualise the problem themselves.  Use imagination to visualise a problem.  This might be effective where a charity seeks donations towards tackling a problem.  When we visualise a problem, we may become more inclined to address it.  

My other challenge is for Sheffielders.  Do you have anything to share about the Porter?  Your experiences along it, bits and pieces of history you've uncovered, folklore you've heard?  If you remember something, please share it in the comments.  (Or maybe you are more familiar with other rivers in Sheffield, you could share those too.)  Let's see what we can find out over the coming weeks.

This is the fifteenth of 21 stories about the Porter.  The last story was: Not to be Sneezed At!  The next is: Dream Time.

This is the Bramall Lane bridge.