(A Journey of Nostalgia)

I journeyed but once from the old Hucknall Central,

A station now gone on the GCR line;

Its imprint on memory, though, quite monumental

Made mystically precious by passage of time.

The floors and the stairways so basically timbered;

They echoed our footsteps; we ran without stop;

We carried Ian Allans with sequences numbered

And jotters and pens and a bottle of pop.

Then pushing and jostling embarking the carriage

To get a compartment that’s all to ourselves;

Three heads through a window as best we could manage

Then clambering onto the net luggage shelves.

The city of Nottingham our destination,

A trainspotting Mecca of juvenile joys;

The dark and foreboding Victoria Station

Almost a cathedral to 12 year old boys.

Victorian workmanship, proud and expressive,

And hewn in a cutting of hard sandstone rock;

Its length and its curvature doubly impressive

The calm reassurance of Smith’s platform clock.

And then the reward for our day’s expedition -

The sweet expectation a rumour would bring;

The racing and shouts that confirmed the suspicion -

The spot of occasional Castle or King.

Evading the watch of the slow railway bobbies

Patrolling at Colwick or Annesley shed;

How to explain this most pointless of hobbies

Which only resides in the heart, not the head?

The pain of nostalgia is real and not mental;

Victoria Centre’s a new shopping mall

And Lidl replaces the old Hucknall Central;

The march of modernity’s taken its toll.