Saturday 20 April 2013

The Better Camera


The Thatcher post from earlier this week provided me with a reason to smile. It wasn't anything to do with the iron lady herself but one of the photographs i had used in the post. A memory came to mind.

Student life had many fun moments but one aspect that isn't often talked about is the boredom. During the week you would have course work and other distractions to entertain you, yet i found filling the time over the weekends could be tricky. You can only read so much. To counter this, I created a circular walking route that I would do most weekends. During my years as a student I had routes in each of the towns I lived in but the Middlesbrough walk always remained my favourite. It was dark, gritty and industrial but beautiful too.

The River Tees runs past Middlesbrough and I had a walk that went through the centre of town, followed the river from the iconic Transporter bridge to the Newport bridge, and then cut through the terraced streets back to my house. I imagine that the walk must have been around three miles in length (note: just measured it using Google Earth - it was five miles so I was well off with my estimate). Often the route was quiet apart from the occasional dog walker or runner, but one hot June day i came across the family seen in the photo above.

The photo was taken just off the rather glamorously titled Depot road that I had to follow between the two bridges. The location hasn't changed very much at all in twenty years, but the once open space now has a security fence that makes access near impossible. The rail track itself ran down to the dockside, although by the look of it, a train hadn't run along those tracks in years. Making their way along this overgrown bit of railway line came a man with his young son and daughter.

"Look Dad, he has a camera" remarked the young girl pointing to the Pentax Program A i was carrying. "Yeah" replied the Dad in a rather confident tone of voice "but my camera is better than his!" I just smiled and carried on walking my route. What camera he had I don't know. Unlike me, he didn't have it with him.

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