Snowing And Floating

A Memory of Dronfield Woodhouse.

Can't be too specific about the year, just know I was young. Perhaps we'd not been long in our house on Carr Lane, having lived in Dronfield before. What a treasure this house was, running water, separate bedrooms and gardens, and the view from the front was fields as far as the eye could see.

There wasn't much traffic in those days, not much of anything in fact, pedestrians or animals, just the bus once an hour, the No 86 I believe, and the odd car, very odd car.

There weren't many shops either, just one local one where you basically got all of your needs, fresh crusty bread daily, made by Gunstones or Fletchers, we would go and pick a loaf up, and pick bits of crust off on the way home, and hope you didn't get into too much bother for it, then there was a Post Office at the top of the road.

There were at least two farms and two pubs and a Miners Welfare just by the rec, (recreation field), where many an hour was spent playing football.

It was a lovely little village, and such a difference to our previous house which was a back to back, sorry, a dirty back to back with outside toilets and only cold running water. This was on the main Chesterfield to Sheffield road, if this wasn't bad enough we had the main railway line directly to the rear of the house.

The winters were far worse in those days than we get now, and that's not just a romantic memory, they really were, we would get snow drifts and it would hang about for days. It was one of these days that gives me this memory that I will never forget, it was made from the tranquility of the place, the lack of traffic and a winters day when it was snowing heavily.

As I say it was snowing really heavily, everything was quiet, muffled as only snow can muffle any sound. There was no movement around, no traffic, no people walking about, they'd probably all gone in and huddled around the fire, if they had any sense. The view from our front room was fields as far as the eye could see. I was staring out of the front room window, watching these huge snowflakes wend and weave their way down, maybe the streetlight, opposite our house, was on, adding to the delicacy of the scene. Then it was as though it was just a canvas of white, no longer individual fields separated by hedges or walls, these were all gone, whitened into one by the snow, I just kept staring and then I became part of it all and no longer was the snow appearing to fall, it was static, just a sheet of white and it was me that was moving, floating so serenely, it was so peaceful, and possibly made the best, most vivid memory that I have from my 59 years of life.

This is maybe more remarkable as at the time I had 2 sisters and a brother, all of whom were forever running around, as kids do, but none of them interupted my solitude, no noise snapped me out of what I was seeing and feeling.

It is a memory that will no doubt be very hard for anyone else to imagine, but even to this day when I think about it I still get this satisfyingly calm feeling wash over me.

It's something that maybe wouldn't be possible to experience in todays hustle and bustle world, I am glad that I did have the experience, and the memory to share with anyone wanting to hear about it.

Hope you enjoyed my memory.

Ray.


Added 21 October 2008

#222905

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