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This set of photos used to be on the front page of this website.  I've moved it here to the blog to free up some space on the site and to give it a bit more context.  I was reminded that it's just over a year since these events took place which is why I was compelled to write down my thoughts on it all.  This blog entry is a mix of the events as they happened, my thoughts of the situation at the time and my thoughts now.  It's not really the story of things or a photography how-to, although I do obviously talk about photography.  It's a stream of thought.  And not always a particularly coherent one. 

I'm really writing this blog outwith the actual timeline of things.  This event took place in the 2 weeks of my final college assignment.  I haven't yet got round to writing up that particular blog entry but you can of course see the photographs on the site.

The reason I mention this is because I think the situation is relevant to why this set of photographs came about.  I had finished the photography side of things (Pamela is reading the book of the project in the photograph above) and was now just writing things up.  I say 'just' like it was a formality.  In the end, I handed in a 60,000 word workbook that detailed the project start to finish and all the related events.  So I was quite stressed by this point.  Pamela was as well as she'd had to deal with me and the work I had put in for the previous 6 weeks.

If you've read "It's not Business, it's Personal “, you'll know that I during that project (about my home town of Falkirk), I learned how photography could affect you personally.  It makes you look at things differently.  It makes you look at things again.  And it makes you think.

"Memories of My Father" (which will someday be the subject of a proper blog entry when I get round to distilling that 60,000 word workbook into something more palatable) had taken what I learned from the Falkirk project and amplified it hugely.  That project had such a huge effect on me that I've never looked at photography the same way since.

Which is why, when on Friday the 13th of May my girlfriend Pamela was taken to hospital with suspected kidney failure, I knew that I was going to be taking photographs.

On the morning of the 13th, I had been feeling pretty good about things.  The book for my college project was 'out for delivery' according to the email I had received.  It wasn't due until the 20th so I'd given myself enough time to order a replacement if there was a problem and a week to finish the workbook.  Time management had been my downfall in year one and I ended up writing and printing a 12,000 word workbook in one day (and well into the next morning).  I'd been far more organised this time round and was quite chuffed with myself.

That same morning I'd taken Pamela to get a routine blood test.  I won't want to go into too much detail about Pammy's health but I will say she gets blood tests regularly due to having type 1 diabetes.  Up until this point, the usual deal was that they'd phone in the afternoon, tell her that her blood sugar level was a bit high but other than that she was fine.

The phone call came earlier in the day this time round.  She was to get to hospital immediately.  Her kidneys were failing.

She phoned her dad to see if he was available to go with her.  If not, I would take her.  Her Dad was preferable though as me going would mean leaving the puppy on his own for several hours which was something we wanted to avoid.  Her dad was able to take her.

She packed a bag of clothes and we discussed kidney dialysis.  It's a huge change to your life.  It would mean hospital visits every day, forever more.  It was a lot to take in and I don't think either of us really wanted to think about that too much.  One thing at a time. 

She left for the hospital.

I would be visiting her that night.  It's fair to say that I didn't get much work done that day while she was away.  Of course my mind started wandering to the darkest thoughts.  I had literally enrolled at college to try get a career that would look after us both.  A career that could pay a mortgage and get us on holidays and see cool stuff.  It had been a big decision to put everything on hold for 2 years while I went back into full time education as a mature student.  Could it really be that after all this time, effort and stress, trying to make thing better for us, the rug was going to be pulled out from under us with a week to go?

The one college related thing I managed to do was to email my lecturer to tell him of the situation and ask if I'd be allowed to get a week's extension to the project.  I couldn't concentrate on that and do this.  It didn't help that it was a project about loss, grief and memories.  Anyone who's done a project of that scale will tell you that you live and breath the project.  It was having a huge impact on my thought process and outlook.  When your mind is already awash with thoughts of death and mortality, and your girlfriend gets taken to hospital with failing kidneys, the second thing gets swept up into the first.  It's overwhelming.

I arrived at the hospital late that night.  She had a room to herself and was happily watching TV.  Pamela spent lots of time in her youth in hospitals so is far better prepared for dealing with this kind of thing than I am.  We chatted, she read through my project book that had arrived that day, we watched the Eurovision Song Contest and I photographed her.  I stayed with her to the early hours of the morning.

I've never spent a night in a hospital.  I've had to use A&E a few times for various small accidents that have occurred over the years.  A sprained ankle. A broken hand.  A bang to the head.  A cut to my eye.  I've been seen and sent on my way that same night on every occasion.

I admired her for it.  Sitting there, almost enjoying herself.  The treatment seemed to have had caught her kidneys just in time.  You flush through fluid and insulin and hope for the best.  Or at least, I hope for the best.  The doctors have a better understanding of things than that.  An infection had caused ketoacidosis.  My limited understanding is that it's a condition that affects diabetics that turns your blood acidic and that it's as bad as it sounds.  It had caused her kidneys to close down.

The doctor later explained to us that at one point, her kidney functions had gone down to 11%.  Much lower than that and the damage would have been permanent and life changing.

I photographed her for my own sake.  Maybe putting a camera between me and the situation ahead was shielding me from things.  Maybe by breaking the situation into a series of bite sized chunks, I could deal with it more easily.  Maybe it just took my mind off things for a bit.  If I'm occupied with composition, lighting and camera setting etc, I'm not thinking about other things.  Maybe it was because I knew this was an important part of our lives and wanted to make sure it stayed unforgotten.  Maybe it's because once something is photgraphed, it becomes the past so I was pushing myself along one photograph at a time.  Maybe it just made the situation a little more normal and recognisable for us.

I don't know the psychology behind it, really.  It was almost certainly a mixture of all those things and some other things that I haven't thought about.  I do know that it helped.

Pamela was in hospital from the 13th to the 17th.  I saw her every day but only took my camera in again on the last day.  By this point we knew she was in the clear so the stress of the situation had dissipated.  By the end I was enjoying having full control of the TV in the house by myself

I took her home.  It was hard to tell if she was more excited to see the dogs or vice versa.  It was good to have her back.  I had missed her.  Pamela made a full recovery, the college gave me an extension and I finished my workbook.

Not for the first time, photography had acted as a sort of therapy.  However, those previous situations had arisen through choice.  I chose to look at the changing face of my hometown.  I chose to do a project about memories of my Dad.  I hadn't chosen this and it wasn't for a college project.   This was different and it was real life.  I was already in the midst of a seismic change in the way I viewed my own relationship to photography.  This event happened during that process.  I was learning how photography could help me deal with stress and mental health and within days I was trying it out in the real world.  I don't believe in fate but that felt pretty close to it.  

It's weird how when something creates such a big change in your life, it almost feels like a super power.  Like I now have something to deal with this previously insurmountable issue.  I was terrible before with dealing with stress.  It'd get bottled up and pushed to the side but would manifest itself in other ways.  Photography isn't a magic wand to remove all life's stresses and struggles, of course.  It's just an outlet that can be used to alleviate things.  Like running, or singing etc it takes all that bad stuff and focuses it into something understandable that you can process.

Thankfully, it's not something that I've had to put to use since.

Afternoon Adventures on a Steam Train

Afternoon tea on a steam train.  It all sounds frightfully middle class.

It's not really.  Although I'm happy that that's the connotation.  Because it's what I bought for Pamela's birthday.  If it sounds middle class, it sounds expensive, you see.

It's actually one of those things that I would never have heard about had I not been sitting at my computer at the exact time someone at the Bo'ness and Kinneil Heritage Railway had decided to stick a link in a Tweet.  Pamela has mentioned in the past that she likes train journeys so I thought it'd make a nice present for her upcoming birthday.

I quickly got it booked and paid for and we had about a month to wait before heading out.  I guessed it wouldn't be a long journey.  The railway that they use isn't connected to any other main line so there's only so far you can go.

Oddly enough, I've travelled along the line before from the station in Bo'ness.  I was an extra in a TV show called, "Not Safe For Work" a few years ago..  They had a set piece on a train that performs an emergency stop and someone bursts their nose.  In the scene, I'm sitting at the back of the carriage reading the British Journal of Photography, trying to angle myself enough to be on camera.  I've checked out the show and you can just about tell it was me.  It was actually quite a painful shoot, to be honest.  I got stuck with another guy (if it's still up by the time you read this, his photograph is somewhere in the portrait section of the site) in a different carriage from everyone else and sat there while the train trundled back and forth for hours until we were needed.  On top of that the crew were obviously tired and being very short with each other and of all my experiences while working as an extra, it was the only shoot that wasn't in any way enjoyable.  

I had higher hopes for my return to the railway.

We arrived with half an hour to spare so went to pick up the tickets before having a look about.  We were given several things in a pack.  Tickets, souvenir tickets, Afternoon tea booking and an information booklet.  I think.  I don't really remember and I just stuffed them away in various pockets anyway.  We were told that our booking was on table two.

Before boarding, we had a quick look about the gift shop.  The usual things you'd expect were there.  Train sets, toys for the kids and various fridge magnet stuff etc.  If you've ever been in a gift shop for a niche tourist attraction you could probably name 50 things that you'd think would be in there and be right with them all.

I have to mention the one thing that caught my attention, though.  You can buy train journeys on DVD.  They film the train journey from the point of view of the train driver and sell it on digital versatile disc.  I can hardly remember a time where I've been so torn on buying something.  As much as I would imagine that it probably wasn't exactly riveting entertainment, I've got to say I was desperate to find out what was happening on those train journeys that was worth recording.  The 'torn' part comes in because the DVDs cost £15.  I enjoy a flight of fancy as much as the next idiot but I'm afraid at £15, my curiosity would need to wait for another time.  Note- I've since looked these up online and found some on Youtube.  "Each to their own" is a favourite saying of mine so I'm all for these videos if some people enjoy them.  But I'm glad I kept my hands in my pockets.

We boarded the train about 10 mins before departure.  '2' was written on a small bit of paper tucked into the cellophane covering our sandwiches and cakes.  The lack of clear table numbers led to a fair bit of confusion with the passengers but we muddled on and worked it out in the end.  We would have our own booth and table.  I think it'd be a bit of a tight squeeze if there was a group of you but with only the two of us, we were quite comfortable.  An official showed up to give us some information on the train and the area.  He mentioned that while would be getting the steam train today, it's not always possible due to technical problems and that some people felt a bit short changed when they got he diesel instead.  I have to admit that it did cross my mind.  The attraction is the steam train, isn't it?  Anyway that wasn't going to be an issue today as the steam train was up and running.

We settled in and took the wrapping off the food as the train started moving.  Now despite being totally middle class (honestly, dahling), I have to admit that I have never had afternoon tea before so didn't know what to expect.  But it was nice.  Sandwiches and cakes is the long and short of it, really.  The Australian couple in the booth across from us didn't want their tuna sandwiches which worked out well for me.  I didn't want them either but Pamela did so I could have more of the ones I liked without feeling bad about eating all the food.

We had only been going for a few minutes when the conductor arrived looking for the tickets.  I had completely forgotten about all that.  The whole thing was so far removed from a typical train journey that I didn't give it a second thought.  The next 2 minutes of the trip were taken up by my awkward fumbling as I searched every pocket in my trousers and bag before eventually finding them in the pocket of my hoodie that I had taken off and stored out of the road.  I thought he might've come back to me after checking everyone else's tickets rather than stand over me but I suppose this was an old school train and that gets an old school approach haha!

We scoffed most of the food before we reached the end of the line, where we would stop for a short time while the train engine moved to the other end of the carriages to pull us back the other way.  This break let us all stretch our legs and there was a rush to get down to the far end to see the train in action.  I left it alone.  I don't work well when I have to fight with crowds.  It limits what you can do and where you can go.  On my own I have freedom.  I'd rather photograph something considered less interesting my own way than fight my way into a line to photograph the same thing everyone else is trying to shoot.

It was a pleasant journey.  The sound of the train and the feel of it even being very different to modern trains.  There's not a whole lot to see on the route, to be honest.  It's not like the Glenfinnan Viaduct train journey.  There are a few nice spots though and one in particular sees you cross the Avon River which gives a nice view down into the gorge.  It passes by very quickly, though.  So quickly in fact that we nearly missed it on the way out as we were talking and I only just managed to grab a shot on the way back.  

It wasn't a long trip.  Half an hour either way with a short break in between.  Enough time to finish our food and chat about how it would have been great to be alive in the golden age of steam and discuss travelling on trains that we'll likely never visit.

And also to wonder where we were.  I tend to think in terms of where the roads are.  I picture journeys from one place to another via the roads I use to get there.  It's not always obvious when in a car where the nearest train track is and vice versa.  So I find train journeys quite disorientating at times.  Especially as it's you don't really feel trains turning so it's hard to get a sense of direction.  Not that it matters in a train of course as someone else is dealing with the directions.  So we guessed at where we might have been.  After looking at a map once we got home, it became clear that we weren't very good at that game.

When we arrived back at the station, we messed about for a bit.  We also had a walk about to get a look at things we'd missed in the short time we had between arriving onsite and taking our seats.  There's a museum at the station that I've never been into.  There was the option to add entry to that when I first bought the tickets but I decided against it.  Pamela enjoys train journeys but she doesn't cares too much about looking at them in museums.  I also think that if I do visit the museum, I'd do it when the train was away on a trip.  That way, I'd avoid the schoolkids who regularly visit the station.  Nothing against school children but they can and will ruin any activity haha! 

All that was left was to go have a look at the steam train being decoupled and stored in the shed.  I was pleasantly surprised when the driver appeared out of the cabin and was covered in coal dust.  I'm not sure what else I expected mind you.

By this point, most of the other visitors had left so I was able to get my position and angles where I wanted them.  It's just a small train as well so the driver is only a few feet away which help greatly.  I didn't disturb him and just let him get on with his job while I got a few shots.  I'd like to do more of this kind of thing in the future I think.

So we had fun on our little steam train adventure.  It's not for everyone.  We were the youngest folk on the afternoon tea carriage by about 20 years.  If you prefer your days with a bit more adrenaline, you could skip this.  But if you want something a bit different and maybe a bit more serene, go for it.  It's a pleasant way to spend an hour or two.

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