Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts

The BF and I celebrated the anniversary of the day we met last week.  Yes, nineteen years ago, I got drunk and talked to some random in a pub.  Memories.

Anyway, to commemorate this momentous occasion, I made a suggestion.  "Why don't we celebrate?" I suggested.  "Let's go away for a mini break, a few days in a four star hotel near a historic English city?  Let's indulge ourselves."

...Nope, sorry, that's a lie.  What I actually said was, "I've got to get Durham and Chester-le-Street stations.  Do you want to come or do you want to stay at home?  Up to you."

Romance.

He picked the "may as well come with" option and we made our way across England to Durham.  Trainspotters will be disappointed to hear we went by car.  I did float the railway option, but after roughly eight milliseconds of thought, the BF said "no."  He loves to drive, always has, and the thought of a trip across chilly hills excited him far more than three hours aboard a Class 185.  I'm not bothered; either way I get to sit back and do nothing while someone else does all the actual work.

After a night's rest in a Durham hotel ("yes, we do only need one room, and yes, we do know it's a double, we've already said actually, thank you") we headed into the city centre for a look round.  I'd been saving Durham because I wanted to do it justice.  I'd passed through it on the train many times, and spotted the colossal edifice of the cathedral perched on top of a rocky outcrop - a stunning view, and part of the World Heritage area of the city.

We got the park and ride into the city centre, alighting opposite the blank brick face of the Gates Shopping Centre.  The narrow streets seemed like any other town, lined with Boots and a second hand video game shop and an ugly Starbucks.  Round a corner, though, the Framwellgate Bridge took you over a wide river, a weir churning wildly downstream.

From there the road rose steeply, cobbled and slippery, clambering up the hill.  Durham's historic centre is surrounded on three sides by water.  A tongue of hard rock forced the river to flow round it, creating an almost-island that was a perfect, easily defended spot for a city.  The Normans built both the castle and the cathedral in the 11th Century, and for hundreds of years Durham existed as a city-state within England.

The Market Square provided a moment of rest, then we climbed another hill, pausing now and then so the BF could have a wheeze.  He has both asthma and dodgy knees (a result of years of football playing, and evidence for my theory that no good can come from sport) so steep climbs are an agony for him.  When we visited San Francisco I basically had to load him on a sledge and drag him round behind me.

Passing a branch of my nemesis, the Edinburgh Woollen Mill, and not one but two Waterstone's, we finally reached the Palace Green.  At one end, Durham Castle, and at the other, the Cathedral, with the ancient university library sandwiched in between.  It was undeniably impressive, so long as you ignored all the plant vehicles doing some kind of work on the grass in the middle.

Like the eager little tourists we are, we gamboled up to the Castle to get our fix of Norman fortifications.  We were immediately struck by our first disappointment.  The Castle is in use as a college of Durham University, and about a hundred students actually live there; as a result, the only way to look round is by guided tour.  As unabashed cheapskates we declined the tour and instead turned our attention to the Cathedral.  At least that was free to get in.

This where I should write dozens of paragraphs about the awe-inspiring beauty of Durham Cathedral.  About its huge, calming space, its intricate stained glass, the history dripping out of every piece of stone.  The giant columns holding up the roof, the feeling of dizziness when you stand under the tower and look up.

I'm not going to do that because I spent my whole visit seething.  Photography is banned in the cathedral.  Anywhere.  There's no reason for this, of course, other than they want to flog you postcards.  The website is pretty unabashed about this:

That's shameless gouging, and very disappointing.  I would've loved to have shown you some of the delights of the cathedral, enough to intrigue you and make you plan your own visit, but instead, I'm just going to tell you it was pretty and a bit cold.  There you go.

We wandered out of the undercroft of the Cathedral, declining to spend any money in the huge gift shop, and into South Bailey, a road that snakes its way down to the river. There was a plaque on one of the buildings commemorating the home of Revd. William Greenwell; he was described as a "Minor Canon", which I'm sure is a theological term, but just sounds like the historical society was calling him insignificant.

The main University campus is to the south of the river, so as we walked downhill we encountered a lot of fresh faced students coming uphill.  For a while, as a teen, I fancied going to Durham University.  I wasn't brave enough to try and get into Oxford or Cambridge, so I thought Durham was an acceptable compromise - kind of like I was aiming for bronze.  As it was, when I filled in my UCAS form, I wasn't even brave enough to put it down.  I failed my A-levels anyway, so I would've gone through a rigorous application process for no reason.  (My cousin Lucy eventually went to Durham, because it is the destiny of younger family members to make you feel inadequate).

Walking back round the peninsula at riverside level, the BF and I agreed that Durham was... alright.  It was a bit of a let down.  In our heads, we'd imagined it to be like York or Chester - a non-stop parade of history and heritage.  It turned out it was an island of staggering beauty in amidst a very ordinary town.

Returning to the town centre only reaffirmed our view.  The buildings built across the river were almost aggressively ordinary, no doubt the result of successive planning committees refusing anything slightly interesting so it wouldn't "detract".  After a couple more circuits, we decided we'd had enough, and got the Park and Ride bus back to the car.

After a brief visit to some statue or other...

...we went to Chester-le-Street.  I had two stations to collect in this part of the world, and, unless I took a train, it didn't count.  The idea was that the BF would drop me off in Chester-le-Street, I'd get the train south, and then he'd pick me up at Durham station.

Before that, we thought we'd have a look round.  As its name implies, Chester-le-Street is threaded along a main thoroughfare, and we wandered up and down it, looking in shop windows.

It was not great.  The shops were small and grim.  The pubs were "boozers".  The regenerated market square at the southern end of the town, all new brick and stone, ended up looking like a bare windswept expanse without any stalls.

After a moment of horror where I misread a shop called Nelglo as Negro (a misread that probably says more about me) we turned and walked back up the main road.  There was an "arts space" called Willy Nilly, and a closed nightclub called Soda still advertising its New Year's party ("comedy drag show/male stripper/karaoke" - surprisingly queer for a town in mining country), and an e-cigs shop with banners outside and posters in the window calling for free parking in the high street:

I do love a shop with an axe to grind, and the BF and I stood outside and read the entire rant until the owner appeared in the window and stared at us.

The highlight of Chester-le-Street was the post office.  Make of that what you will.  It was a clean, 1930s brick building, nicely styled:

The real highlight was in the corner window:

A rare Edward VIII insignia, showing that the post office was opened during that brief period between him becoming king and abdicating.  I found that far too exciting, to be honest, which probably shows you what a disappointing day it was turning into.  It was time to draw and end to the visit.  I waved the BF off and headed for the station.

Chester-le-Street has a booking office and a waiting room, but they're not run by Northern Rail.  Instead, the responsibility for the facilities lies with Chester-le-Track, a private organisation.  It's a weird set up (they also run Eaglescliffe station).  It's hard to shake the idea that it's a lot of boys playing trains, an impression not helped by the staff in the ticket office both looking like teenagers.

It's all missing the polish and the professionalism you get from a proper train company.  Bless them for trying and everything, and let's be honest, if they weren't running the booking office here there wouldn't be one at all, but it was a couple of degrees off what you expect from a 21st century railway.  It was all a bit 1980s British Rail.

I'm not 100% sure why Chester-le-Street is a Northern Rail station at all.  Both it and Durham are mainly served by a combination of TransPennine Express and trains, with the odd service from CrossCountry and Virgin East Coast.  Northern trains are restricted to the odd stopper in the morning rush hour.  They seem to have been given responsibility for the station because no-one else wanted it.

Pleasingly, the train that arrived to take me one stop to Durham was the Liverpool train.  It was odd getting on board a train headed for my home city and not slumping, exhausted, into a seat with a three hour journey ahead of me.  Instead, in a matter of minutes, I was hopping off again.

Durham station has been conspicuously smartened up, with ticket barriers and plenty of staff.  It's at the top of a ridge on the edge of the city centre, so glass walls have been installed to minimise the winds, and also to give you a perfect view of the cathedral:

All very nice, I'm sure you'll agree, but absolutely nothing as far as I'm concerned because it doesn't have a station sign.  Not a one.  There are signs saying "station" on them, and a big British Rail logo on a staircase -

- but nothing that actually said Durham on it.  I ran around in a slight panic - the BF was double parked, waiting for me to get in the car so we could go back to the hotel - looking for anything that would pass my strict station sign criteria.  In the end I headed back inside.  The ticket barriers meant I couldn't go onto the platform, so I ended up squatting on the concourse, capturing a platform sign through the glass wall.

A bit of a let down.  Not quite as good as it promised on first glance.  Underwhelming.  It seemed an appropriate way to finish my Durham visit, somehow.

As Seen On TV

I love TV.  Properly love it.  I can't see how you can't.  It's lots and lots of entertainment, delivered to your front room, and you don't have to do anything to get it except press an occasional button on your remote and pay your TV licence.  I don't understand people who don't own a television, and people who are proud about this are the worst.  No, wait; the actual worst people are the ones who say "I don't own television, I watch it all online so I don't need a licence."

Well said, Joey, and yet more evidence for Grace Dent's theory that there is an appropriate quote from Friends for every occasion.

I've grown up loving television in all its forms.  It's family legend that I would watch the Open University as a baby, and that one of my first words was "tellyon."  As in, "can I have the telly on?".  It didn't stop me from reading books or thinking for myself or any of the usual criticisms people level at the "idiot box".  It was just another fantastic way to spend my time.

A side effect of all this TV watching is the thrill of visiting a fictional location in the real world.   When I was in New York earlier this year, I visited the spot for Monica's apartment from Friends, and 168 Riverside Drive, home to Liz Lemon.  I visited Loser Cafe from The Apprentice while I was in London, and my trips to Coronation Street are well documented.

Getting off the train at Hadfield, then, carried with it an extra thrill.  It looked like another cosy, purple and white Northern Rail station.  Shift perspectives, squint a little, and you saw the darkness underneath: this was the station for Royston Vasey, the end of the line, the place where Benjamin arrived and his nightmares began in The League of Gentlemen.

I was a big fan of The League of Gentlemen, the comedy show broadcast on BBC Two between 1999 and 2002.  I have all the DVDs - even the incredibly disappointing film.  I saw them live at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.  I have their books.  This was the first time I'd actually visited Hadfield, the place where the series was filmed, chosen by the stars because it was "shitty".

I'd left it too late.

I didn't realise that, at first.  I left the station forecourt and was immediately presented with the iconic War Memorial, the one featured in the titles to every episode.  Since the show filmed here, they'd added a seating area and gardens, but the wreath-bearing angel was still recognisable.  I could hear the bouncing notes of Joby Talbot's theme tune as I looked up at it.

Meanwhile, the D&D Newsagents had a window devoted to the show, its main feature being a poster for Papa Lazarou's Circus.  They sold postcards of "Royston Vasey", too.

A turn, and I was on that famous high street... but it had changed.  Obviously, I didn't expect the townsfolk to have preserved it exactly as it was when they filmed: I mean, in one episode, the army was called in to oversee a panicking populace, so you'd hope they'd at least tidy up.  But gentrification had crashed into Hadfield, and I imagine that the League would be disappointed if they returned for a fourth series.  It just wasn't that shitty any more.

Coffee shops had infested the main road, pastel coloured and filled with comfortable warm furnishings.  There were florists and a children's music school.  If I'd not known it from my telly, I'd have seen it as just another pretty Derbyshire town.  There were no references to its famous past.  Admittedly, I didn't expect the butcher's shop to refer to its "special stuff", but neither did I think it would now be an award-winning artisan sausage maker.

Even the Cafe Royston, still visible on Google Streetview, had changed its name to the Food Stop and advertised itself as cyclist friendly.  I'd hoped for a pint in the Mason's Arms, scene of Les McQueen's heartbreaking realisation that Creme Brulee had reunited without him, but it was a Tesco Metro now.

I headed into the back streets, in search of a bit of Royston Vasey shaped darkness, but it was disappointingly charming.  The coming of the railway shifted Hadfield's centre of gravity to Station Road, meaning that behind the Victorian streets was an old-fashioned village left preserved.

There were the occasional oddities; a cottage called The Old Slaughterhouse, a pocket-sized barber shop that could probably have been a bit sinister if you concentrated hard enough, but most of it was just... ordinary.  I rounded a corner and found the greatest sadness of all.

The Job Centre, the location for Pauline Campbell-Jones' petty torments, was now a development of charming flats.  It had become desirable and chic.

I realised that not everyone carried their televisual history around with them.  I've not watched The League of Gentlemen properly in years, apart from catching the occasional late-night repeat on Dave, but I could still see it overlaid on Hadfield.  I thought they'd still enjoy their moment in the sun, but it was just a tv show.  It was just a thing that happened once, folded into the history books and quietly packed away.

I walked back to Station Road, wishing I'd come sooner, when there was still League-fever.  I'd have to move on I guess.  The League have: Mark Gatiss is now a television magnate, with Sherlock and Doctor Who, and Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have gone on to produce the equally dark, equally brilliant Psychoville and Inside No. 9.  Still good telly.  Still important to me.

I headed out of town, up a steep hill that quickly turned to countryside.  If I'd come here a few decades ago, there would have been more stations for me to collect, at Crowden and Woodhead.  Hadfield only recently became the end of the line; until 1981 the line continued up and through the Pennines via the Woodhead Tunnel, re-emerging on the other side to call at Penistone and proceeding on into Sheffield.

The Woodhead Line was a pioneer, electrified with overhead lines in the 1950s as a test ground for the brave new post-steam world.  Technology moved on and abandoned it though.  The electrics chosen were of a relatively low voltage, and when it came to the rest of the network, British Rail went with a different system.  It left Manchester-Sheffield via Hadfield as an orphan line; it had to have its own special trains that couldn't run anywhere else.  Combine this with the general feeling from the Sixties onward that trains were too much hassle, and bits of the line were closed down; passenger services beyond Hadfield ended in 1970, while freight services lasted another eleven years.  Then the Hadfield line was converted to the same electric system as the rest of the country.

Closing a route across the Pennines, that stark impassable backbone that runs the length of England, seems like madness.  Worse, the madness has been compounded; the National Grid took over the tunnel and used them for cables, meaning it's impossible to reuse them for railways.  Meanwhile, the one remaining, still non-electrified route between Sheffield and Manchester strains for capacity.  Northern Powerhouse, though!

I'd thought about walking up to Woodhead, to see what was left - the railway line was turned into a long-distance path, the Longendale Trail - but it was gone three, and I didn't fancy being up in the mountains when it got dark.  Instead I climbed up and over the hill and descended into Glossop.

Walking amidst kids who hadn't even been born when The League of Gentlemen first aired, I found a surprisingly elegant town centre. Glossop became rich from cotton and calico and was home to many mills; the families who ran the mills acted as generous benefactors for the town and built stately churches and reading rooms to improve the lives of their workers.

I promenaded down the stately main street, wishing I had a walking stick or a top hat.  Admittedly, it probably would have drawn the scorn of the lively, just out of school teenagers who filled the windows of the coffee and sandwich shops, but it was that kind of town.  It demanded a dandy.

The Howard Town development - named after one of those local worthies - was less successful, a converted mill towering over a Wetherspoons and - spit! - an Edinburgh Woolen Mill.  It was a retail park wedged in where it didn't belong, though I expect Glossop's well-heeled residents were glad to have a Marks and Spencer Simply Food arrive.

I stopped for a pint at the Norfolk Arms, right in the centre of town.  There was a young couple in there with a new baby.  They were valiantly trying not to let the mewling child interfere with their life as grown up, chilled hipsters, with dad rolling his own cigarette and mum's purple hair, but it was a battle they were destined to lose.  Her brown roots were showing, and when he asked if it she minded while he went for a ciggie, her "if you really have to" was laced with tiredness and fury.  I felt like leaning over and telling them to give up; just stick the Baby on board sign in the back window of your hybrid and resign yourself to a life of primary colours and total acquiescence to your spawn's every desire.

Refreshed, I walked to the station, past a beauty salon called Giallo; hopefully it's not named after the genre of lurid Italian thrillers, because that'd mean an awful lot of blood to mop up on a daily basis.  Half of Glossop station is now a Co-op, which is always a disappointment, but it was still a sturdy, proud terminus.

The main line bypassed Glossop, but it was important enough to get its very own spur.  Now it's the point where the train reverses to take in the next part of the Dinting triangle.  I was pleased that I'd finally got to visit this quirky anomaly on the Northern map.

Inside, the station was cool but beautifully restored; proud plaques commemorated various prizes won for the work.  It was like much of the rest of the town - stately, refined, understated.

On the platform, signs declared that Glossop was the "Gateway to the Dark Peak", which sounds like a terrifying Fighting Fantasy novel.  I had a two hour journey to get home, and I hoped there wouldn't be any delays.  I needed to be back in time for Only Connect.