Cloud, smoke and steam

A STIFF, COOL WIND from the north west brings row after row of cumulus cloud down the valley. Birds and butterflies lie low.

A steam special stops to fill up with water at the marshalling yards. The crew re-stack the coal in the tender.

As it comes into the valley, trailing white sunlit clouds of steam, whistle blowing and a chugging sound that suggests the effort it is putting into climbing a gradient, it seems somehow alive.

After filling up, it sets off again on its circuit of the south Pennines, belching out clouds of grey smoke. I remember how, as young children, we used to run to the bridge when we saw a train coming for the fun of being enveloped in the noise and the clouds of steam.

Blackthorn is now in full blossom at the edge of the wood.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail;'richard@daelnet.co.uk'