In Between Connections...

Carole and I spent another successful and interesting day on Thursday doing the Ticket Exchange at stations around Langwith Whaley Thorns, a post about the day will appear soon!

Meanwhile, we have received a number of postcards from people we connected with from our last Ticket Exchange, many with fascinating and thoughtful comments on the experience of travel.

Film still

There is also a short film put together by Mac Canonymous which he filmed on our day around Whatstandwell - click here to see it.

Film still

Thanks to everybody who has taken part so far and especially those who have sent us a postcard!

Turning towards tomorrow

In 2008, when Carole and I were working on the Fingerprints project, we wrote quite a lot of poetry.  Going through some of our musings the other day, I came across this that I wrote:

It seems that, in our collaboration, we had already started considering the links between time and travel.

Click here to see some of our other Musings from the project. 

We are definitely turning towards tomorrow now, and really just starting out on our project.  We have already had responses to our postcard, so thanks to those who have replied.  Responses have been enthusiastic and encouraging and there have been suggestions of other people we should contact, thus already expanding our Undiscovered Network!

romanticism

One travels to escape from it all, but that is the great illusion: It cannot be done, since one travels with one's mind.

 Ella Maillart (travel writer, 1903-1997)

The romanticism of travel still persists.  Yesterday I saw a 7 year old boy at the station platform waiting for the train with his family.  Mum looks tired, carrying all the bags - they are on a trip to Skegness, they had to get up early to get things ready.  The boy, however, is full of beans, he's beside himself with excitement and announces to the platform crowd "We're going on a train! choo choo!"  followed by the dance:  he strides up and down the platform, rotating arms bent at the elbow, "chuff chuff, woo woo!"

Where, I wonder, has he got this image from?  Has this young boy ever actually seen a steam engine that goes "chuff chuff woo woo"?  Certainly no trains at this platform will be making that sound.  Somehow the excitement of the romantic image of the train lives on in this child - he does not talk about the excitement of the seaside, it is the journey itself that has him enthused.

Alas, not so for the rest of us this morning, commuting to our various places of work.  How different the weekend train passengers are from the Monday morning.  The train is equally noisy, but nobody here expects the journey to be exciting, or even fun - most people have brought some form of distraction for themselves:  headphones, books, mobiles for texting, spreadsheets to pore over, dark sunglasses to sleep under.  No child's voice trilling over the conversations of colleagues, no sense of anticipation, just a sleepy, weary monotony of the same old journey...

I once made a piece called "Interruptions"which mused on travel... how travel is a series of interruptions, a story to tell and the "interruptions are what make a journey worth relating."  The daily commute has no sense of story, there will be no interruptions... it is the efficiency of the train that takes away the anticipation, the unexpected, the romanticism...

It is the unknown that excites us, the sense of exploration, the romanticism of the train only lasts for those for whom it is a novelty, who don't know what to expect, who knows what could happen... like a 7 year old boy.

A new journey

Welcome to the beginning of our new journey: Undiscovered Networks.

We have started this blog to open up our conversation as our new project develops.

Following our last project, which took place in Corby, Northamptonshire, UK, (please visit Fingerprints on the Pew to see our project book), we became interested in the new train station recently reopened. When a new rail network is re-opened, how does that connection affect a town? We started thinking about the idea of connections, networks, and undiscovered places.

We have selected 12 places that are linked to Corby on the network. 12 places we don’t know, 12 undiscovered places. Our project will find connections between these places.

Corby
Metheringham
Cleethorpes
Blythe Bridge
Peartree (Lincs)
Thetford
Dore
Haven House
Langwith-Whaley Thorns
Fiskerton
Whatstandwell
Wittlesea
March