Shifting Sands
Writing Challenge 2023
Posted by Chris Sissons on Apr 12, 2023
Writing Challenge ยป Chris Sissons
I said I would make it to this morning’s funeral “subject to the vagaries of the 88 bus”. The 88 didn’t disappoint (or maybe it did). I stood at the bus stop and watched the bus approach from 8 minutes away until it was due and then it vanished! The next one didn’t vanish but took its time crossing the city and we were just in time until it took a diversion a few hundred yards away! I missed most of the first hymn.
I haven’t seen M for a few years. We were members of the same church and then it closed and there was Covid. It was good to see her photos and remember her cooking, dancing and French.
M was a French teacher for many years and her family joked that whenever they went out together, they would meet one of her pupils.
After tea and cake, I decided to walk in the sun to a spot where I knew the bus home would visit. I also intended to pass my old secondary school, High Storrs. I wanted a few photos for this story and struggled to get a view unobstructed by fences and trees.
The main building I remember from the 60s and early 70s is still there. The new biology labs have been demolished and replaced by a mysterious cube.
I visited the school a few years ago at the invitation of the Centenarians to view the changes, especially the extension for the 6th form. We had a meal and I chatted with a man who had just retired from being a teacher there for 30 years. It was for him and many others the end of an era. Except he started long after I left.
It’s strange how memory builds layers of experience. The parent looks at their adult child and sees them as a baby, a toddler … The teacher recognises pupils with kids of their own and then those kids with kids of their own …
And while Sheffield is still recognisably Sheffield, it changes. Maybe in details like the High Storrs building or massive changes – Castle Square before the hole in the road and after the hole in the road. Two massive changes in my lifetime but look at old videos and it is still the same place, somehow.
I can’t remember the earliest encounter with my theme because my theme is change and as a child anticipating the hole in the road, venturing into High Storrs as a Grammar School before it went comprehensive and co-ed – I could not be aware of change. Now I know we walk in shifting sands and I’m ready for it! (Mostly!)
This year's writing challenge, fueled by prompts, is about the City of Sheffield. Be surprised by what's included and even more surprised by what's left out. This is Post 1 and there are 21 altogether. Share your thoughts and your love for the City in the comments. The last Post 0 is Context: Sheffield. The next post 2 is Dayspring.
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