Glass gothic
(Ceiling of the Railway Station: Carlisle, England)
It occurred to me as I stood awaiting the 14:47 Euston to Glasgow Central train the other week that I had never really appreciated Carlisle station’s finer points. I believe there used to be many more than there are now; the frontage is quite lovely in red sandstone with a prominent clock face and Victorian Gothic charm. This is obviously the ceiling interior, a glass and steel construction which I have always admired, even from when I was very tiny. It felt to me like a vast conservatory roof, albeit undercut by trains. I used to watch the pigeons congregating in the ‘O’s of the metalwork, listening in between garbled tannoy announcements and the screeching grind of the trains to their continual flapping and warbling. I love a train station’s ability to be inside and yet feel like outside at the same time. The presence of the birds compounded this confusing capacity.
I have taken hundreds of trains to and from here in my lifetime, of that I am certain, so I suppose some of my heritage is linked to it. One early memory is of waving a visitor goodbye – she had stayed with our family for three months and was heading back to London to catch her flight back home to Japan. I was devastated. At the age of seven, I had felt that she had simply become part of the family in those few months and I cried with great gusto – probably making her much more upset too. I don’t remember much more than feeling quite desolate and wishing immediately that she would return. I have waved my grandma goodbye here and travelled between home and University, come back for weddings, parties and watched all manner of friends and relatives arrive or leave here. I have gone in every direction possible from this station and I’m sure I will be doing it again very soon. I have been there twice this year already.
– Today Rosie is working for ‘Chunk’ in Glasgow, Scotland –
