Walking the Line 2

Watchgate Water Treatment Works

This is the end of my 'journey' that I started in my previous blip. Being one of those irritating people I've leapt to the last page of this particular part of the Thirlmere - Manchester pipeline story and feel yet more of the T.S.Eliot influence with all it's uncertainty of beginnings and endings and whatever goes on in between,

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field,, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes,
And the deep lane insists on the direction
Into the village, in the elctric heat
Hypnotised. In a warm haze the sultry light
Is absorbed, not refracted, by grey stone.
The dahlias sleep in the empty silence.
Wait for the early owl.

I came here today because it was an easy stop on my way home from work, just off the A6 on the old Roman road, and I was curious about this place that G would talk about. It had a memorable name and has always stuck in my mind as the end of the section of the Thirlmere pipeline that G would have worked on at various times. It's an important junction where water from Thirlmere, Haweswater and other sources is collected and treated before heading on it's way to Manchester.

Of course, I expected something Victorian because the pipeline was built in the 1890's but now it's a modern, sophisticated treatment works and has a rather terrifying amount of security which initially surprised me but then, of course, the modern world, and the potential sadly for harm.

I stopped to chat to a man walking his dogs - he didn't know much about the works but before long we discovered that we had both known Ike who had been an old neighbour of mine and lifelong friend of G's. He said he had been a policeman in Penrith and remembers having to do 8 hour shifts standing directing traffic on Eamont Bridge before the M6 and traffic lights and the frequent miles and miles of jams.

As I made my way home I thought that if I hadn't decided to make this little blip journey we would probably never have met, stopped and talked and re-found our joint memories of lovely old Ike Dixon who I will always remember talking to one of my other old neighbours about the trail hound races and saying, 'I hear weersit's, wotsit won at wheresit'. Classic Lakeland crack!