Prosaic/poetic - a photo on Flickriver

Prosaic/poetic

            I've always had a soft spot for this unremarkable but somehow poignant photograph.  It's all in the ordinariness.  The stagnation of the week following Christmas, a couple of squelchy fields, a bit of grazing, the unimpressive River Tone, making its unhurried way towards the Bristol Channel, the wagtail that  bounds off through the air at our approach and alights on a patch of mud further up the bank, bare branches, a grey midwinter sky, and small sounds ...the groan of traffic on the A38, gulls sqawking as they contest for some scrap of food, the chuckle of the river... drowned for half a minute by the passing of the train.  How familiar and precious it is.  Yet one day, though it suits us so well when all is said and done, we must take our leave of it.
The photograph was taken a mile or so east of Taunton on Friday 28th December 1973.  The train is unidentified, but is London-bound from somewhere in the far west of England.  Uprooted sons and daughters of Devon returning to homes in Twickenham and careers in quality consumer durables after the enforced family reunion that every Christmas brings.  It looks, from Google Maps, as though this area has been considerably built up during the 36 years since I took the photo, and what's not been built up has been changed.  It's no longer an unselfconscious bit of ordinary England.
   

Taken on: October 28, 2009

Tags:

D1064 WESTERN REGENT

Class 52

British Railways

Western Region

River Tone

Somerset « less

Sets appears in: • "Westerns"

Groups appears in: • trains • Railway more » • Trainspotting • Railscape • Traintrack • Intensive Training • UK Railways « less

Stats: 4,083 views / 11 comments

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