Painted Lady

A butterfly feeding on a rosemary bush.

Nothing unusual, except that this is right in the town centre, right next to the petrol station in Morrison’s car park and adjacent to Buccleuch Dock.

A pity the little bugger is feeding upside down. No prizes at the camera club, then!

Coming a cropper

I’m sure this photo, taken at about 11 pm in Dalton Road where skateboarders gather of an evening, is deeply symbolic. Of precisely what I am unable to decide.

Suggestions on a postcard, please.

The Big One

Never mind that rather tedious head match on Sunday between the pawns of multi-squillionaires; there’s only one football game in town tonight and it’s an exciting one. The whole town is palpably on edge in the muggy heat.

Barrow AFC - the Bluebirds - play Stalybridge Celtic in the Blue Square North playoffs for a place in the Conference. And the best of luck to them, even if their proclivity for stealing deafeat from the jaws of victory is well-proven.

Both these teams once played in the Football League; Barrow much more recently than Stalybridge. There was a custom in our house for my mother, when watching the Saturday afternoon results sequence, to exclaim “Good old Barrow!” when Barrow won, which, it has to be said, wasn’t very often. I, meanwhile, didn’t entirely get it when I was little, and I’d call it out when they got stuffed.

Preparing for the big day

Walney Bridge is a hundred years old this year. Thirty years ago it was reckoned to have another twenty years of life left, but it’s a game old thing and still going despite traffic levels undreamed of by the Edwardians. Not only that, but it’s had a major repaint over the course of the last two years, so clearly there are no immediate plans for a replacement.

One narrow bridge isn’t really adequate for an island with 13,000 people living on it, not these days. To make matters worse it’s a bascule bridge, like Tower Bridge in London, and though there are no big ship launches in the Walney Channel any more it still needs to be raised now and again - notably for the annual round-the-island sailing race on the autumn spring tide. Recently the bridge was raised for tests, and was stuck for several hours. 13,000 people cut off from emergency services! There’s been talk of a second bridge for as long as I can remember, and although it’s been discussed again lately it’s still talk. Before the bridge there was a ferry, and at low tide it’s possible to walk across in some places (I’ve done it, though I had to wade for 10 metres or so), but that’s hardly much use in an emergency.

Another one bites the dust

Looks like another Barrow institution is on its way out.

The Bon-Bon, the last remaining traditional tobacconist and sweet shop, from which humbugs, pear drops, sherbert lemons, aniseed balls, Beech’s Violet Creams and cough candy could still be bought loose in a paper bag until very recently, seems to have closed its door and put up the shutters for the last time. The old lady who ran it was reported to be ill several weeks ago; I’ve heard no news since but I fear the worst. Another little bit of the old world lost.

Danson’s of Euryalus Street on Walney, where I used to buy the comestibles noted above with sixpences donated by my Uncle Bill, vanished long ago and is now a private house.

Street signs

Barrow was an iron town before it was a shipbuilding town - the latter being a consequence of the the former - and it was for a time the biggest iron town in the world.

Many of the original street name plates made of local cast iron still survive (all the same, far too many have been replaced with bland, could-be-anywhere signs). These are on Walney, where housing was built for shipyard workers and the streets bear the names of ships built at Vickers. So many of them bear names from the classics, or otherwise thundering with late-Victorian pomp.

Roa Island

It’s a pleasant walk down to Rampside along the Cumbria Coastal Way/Cistercian Way/Greenway or whatever it’s called on any given day. Pleasant provided that you try to ignore the pong, for the path takes you past the toxic waste incinerator and the gas terminal. It’s worth it, though, for the views across Walney Channel to the South End and beyond, and because it leads to Roa Island, and from there to the ferry to Piel Island with its castle and (currently derelict but hopefully to be restored) pub.

I didn’t get that far on my walk today, just far enough to enjoy this prospect of Roa, which isn’t really an island as it’s joined to the mainland by a causeway, and Piel over its right-hand shoulder. Piel is a real island, although at low tide you can walk there from Walney.

Coast to Coast by Bike

It’s a grey and wet day today, which is no excuse for not taking photographs but is a good reason for not going out when you’re feeling less than 100%, as I do (recent virus has left me very drained), so a recycled (ha!) picture for today. In fact, one of the candidates for Thursday’s Theme Day of numbers.

Barrow, or to be more specific Sandy Gap on Walney, is the western terminus of the official W2W Walney to Wear (or Walney to Whitby for masochists - even more of it and even hillier) cycle route. Now and then, parties of athletic young people gather at Sandy Gap, clad in lycra, ready for an epic journey from the Irish Sea, across the highest part of the Pennines to Sunderland at the mouth of the Wear, or Whitby for exquisite kippers and a wind-blown garveyard on a high sea-cliff where you can believe there are vampires.

No vampires in Barrow though.

A Happy Man

Somebody on the CDP forums was saying that these urban portraits should be about people more than buildings, and to a degree that’s right. So here’s a man with much to be happy about today, because he’s just unseated Barrow’s Tory council leader in the local elections.

As in many isolated towns, Barrow’s local government is a law unto itself, often throwing up mavericks and going against the tide. Michael Stephenson, who is proprietor of the excellent Last Resort Coffee Shop, stood as an Independent Anti-Academy candidate in posh Hawcoat ward and scored a palpable hit. The campaign against having an academy in Barrow has made it a hot political issue - many, many people are opposed to an education system dedicated to the churning-out of docile, compliant young people designed for the needs of industry instead of being encouraged to think for themselves and challenge.

Wall

A fragment of indigenous walling, made of the local sandstone, stained red with iron. The characteristic colour of Barrow.

This is part of the wall of the Howitzer Shop, a huge building devoted to the building of big guns for warships which stretches for half a kilometre along Michaelson Road on Barrow Island. Actually one has to be a bit furtive taking pictures around here, as the security people are a bit paranoid.