On my way back from Huddersfield to Elsecar, just outside of Barnsley, on a wintery night after a lovely lunch with my friends in Huddersfield. We ate at a Farm Shop restaurant and the hot beef sandwich I had was enough to warm anyone. it was the end of a great day out for me .

On the train a pair of young women on their way I suppose for a night out in Sheffield. Both might be described as semi punk goth, one more striking and brave than the other who I suppose was there as general encouragement. Absolutely no one appeared to take that much notice of them. They were accepted as indistinguishable to the bloke in the long coat, dark tie, white shirt and smooth flat cap sitting across from me who , without the cap may well have been an undertaker on his way home from measuring up some unfortunate. An overheard conversation made it more likely that he’d been on a hospital visit to a relative, anyone visiting me in a hospital dressed like him might have given me some reason to worry that a tape measure might be produced.

Goth 1, the star of the train was wearing very little on top and what there was stretched across her body joined together with black threads trying to pull free from the bits of material either side of her not inconsiderable chest. A short woman, probably no older than 17 or so, she took no notice of anyone and oddly, no one took any notice of her. I was reminded of my previous days visit to the Hepworth in Wakefield where Yorkshire’s arguably most famous artist’s work is presented. She liked joining bits of string across smooth surfaces to great effect, but her smooth surfaces were static, Goth 1’s surfaces were anything but.

Her looks were so striking that I could not now describe Goth 2 in any great detail, she had made the effort but didn’t quite match her sister in Goth-hood. In addition to Goth string vest, black of course, Goth 1 also wore some tights that did not match, I suppose from different packets. One with lines going up and down her shortish legs, the other going across what was quite a wide leg. Both looked a little like the map of the routes available on Northern Rail in this part of the world, in this case you might not want to go to Leeds. An option suggested to me by a Northern Rail, customer service person at the station as an alternative to getting the next Sheffield train. One look at the Leeds route with all the knotty steps on the way and a journey time that would take me dark into the night was enough to put me off.

There was all round relief when the crew turned up and we could all climb aboard. One of the stops on the way: Penistone. I was reminded that I used to deliver plastic bottles to a factory there when I had a job delivering plastic bottles on a large truck, in the years before anything that might now be described as modern. A pre Goth age, and a place that has never rebranded itself, though with a name like that it might want to now. It’s pronounced Pen as in fountain pen, thank goodness, and you don’t see many of them these days. Fountain pens I mean.

Stoppit!

This was on the way there! Quite a colourful trip.