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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.  The 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.

Where does fear come from?  The known or the unknown?  The unknown breaks through into our lives in Sheffield and seems painfully familiar.  A 15-year-old boy stabbed to death at school.  Flats evacuated for a couple of days because a man claims he has a bomb.  Both recent events.  Unexpected yes.  But sadly familiar. 

Maybe we don’t hear the steady flow of our rivers.  As Sheffielders, they're with us all the time.  We hear and cross them but how often do we notice them?  When we do, do we know which river it is?  Do we care?

I returned to Sheffield in 1989 after 17 years in the North East.  Whilst the Porter Valley was known to me and remembered, I didn’t recognise the same river downstream.  The further away from the familiar, the less likely I was to recognise it as the same river.

I suspect life is like that.  We don’t see the commonalities, the connections with what’s gone before.  The second half of the Porter is an ongoing story of familiarisation, working out what goes where.  We’ve so far encountered only 8 out of 20 dams but where were the others? 

How much of this is the natural flow of a river following its course and how much redirected, canalised and culverted?  The early river, like early life, is full of potential but as it matures, it's formed by other interests and made to do loads of things it wouldn’t left to its own devices.   

Its constraints serve to make the river behave as we need it to.  Occasionally, in spate, it overflows.  In June 2007, the Porter Sheaf and Don conspired to flood the Midland train station, the Don Valley industry and the Meadowhall retail centre.  Although constrained, our rivers have their moments.

Stand in Endcliffe Park, face upstream and look to a certain past.  Look downstream towards an uncertain future, although not necessarily unsurprising.  There is something about this park which presages change.  Some argue the change comes as the river enters the park from under Oakbrook Road. 

Others, myself included, prefer the other end of the park at Hunters Bar, where the Porter moves towards a very different future.  That future is the theme of the second half of these posts. 

It’s not that the nature of the river changes after Hunters Bar.  Not just that.  My relationship with the river changes, too.  It's harder to know, harder to follow and perhaps harder to like.  I don’t see this part of the river through the eyes of a child or youth.  The relationship feels more distant and less intimate, yet this has meaning, not to be feared but to be grasped.

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:

This post was conceived as a transition between the posts about the Porter Valley and new posts about the Porter in the city.  It's about change and how the river develops beyond the point where it is a constant companion, rarely disappearing.  Now it becomes more elusive and stranger.  Perhaps we don't think of a river as surprising because change is usually gradual, at least in contrast to human affairs.  But then, perhaps flooding is always sudden.

In terms of business, it may be worth thinking of change over the history of your business.  I dread being asked when mine started.  It has evolved slowly.  Nothing much seems to happen and then I look back and see how much it's changed.  Sometimes something called an opportunity happens and change seems rapid but usually change is slow and perhaps unobserved.  Is this a story worth telling?

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 tenth of 21 stories about the Porter.  The last story was: Upwelling.  The next is: A Silver Gatehouse.

This is the Porter as it leaves Endcliffe Park, a moment of transition.  It was harder to photograph the exit from the Park and the image below this one is my inadequate attempt.