A Night Best Forgotten

[Falls]

A NIGHT BEST FORGOTTEN

 

 

I wrote this piece of fiction some months ago with two things in mind:

 

To try and add a little excitement into my writing and to improve my skills at incorporating dialogue into text.

 

Before despatching it to the recycle bin, I thought somone in the group might want to read it.

 

Regards

 

http://sheffieldwriters.ath.cx/SFStoryArchive/1225157891.doc

[Hopman]

Very entertaining. Falls.

[Mantaspook]

Hi Falls,

 

That was very good, the dialogue was quite believable, I particularly liked the exchange:

 

“Gone, I tell thee – just varnished”

 

“But engines just don’t varnish - err -vanish, Walter?”

 

The pace of the story was just right; once again the writing style reminds me of James Heriot, the only thing I would consider tinkering with is adding a few lines to describe Hodge's appearance, his character needs slightly more depth to move him to the forefront of the story, particularly in the middle, leave the narrator dominating the beginning and the end of the story - I think that works really well.

 

Loved the bit with the horse too.

 

BTW, what's a fish train?

[Falls]

Hi Falls,

 

That was very good, the dialogue was quite believable, I particularly liked the exchange:

 

“Gone, I tell thee – just varnished”

 

“But engines just don’t varnish - err -vanish, Walter?”

 

The pace of the story was just right; once again the writing style reminds me of James Heriot, the only thing I would consider tinkering with is adding a few lines to describe Hodge's appearance, his character needs slightly more depth to move him to the forefront of the story, particularly in the middle, leave the narrator dominating the beginning and the end of the story - I think that works really well.

 

Loved the bit with the horse too.

 

BTW, what's a fish train?

 

Hello Mantas,

 

I appreciate your comments. Yes, I realized later that I should have developed the "Hodge" character more. After all, he was really the ring leader of the quartet.

 

As for the fish trains, I had fogotten they passed into history sometime ago.

 

In my childhood and early teens, there was very little in the way of food refrigeration. Most butchers shops had refridgerators as did the higher class food stores. Otherwise, you bought perishables as you needed them.

 

In those days, most of our fish came from Hull or Grimsby. The trawlers would come into port in the late afternooon or early evening. The fish would then be unloaded, gutted, packed in ice in wooden boxes and loaded into various fish trains. All this would achieved by midnight at the latest.

 

Fish trains travelled overnight and because of the perishable nature of their cargo, travelled at almost the same speed as passenger trains and had same priority over regular goods trains. To achieve this, they also had the same braking system as passsenger trains. Not the primitive handbrakes on regular goods wagons of the day. Each train consisted of a series of vans that were basically the same size as short wheel-base pasenger coaches but the windows had been replaced with ventilation louvers.

 

The fish train(s) from Hull/Grimsby would be in Sheffield and other inland cities and the fish at the local fish merchants by 5:30 -6:00 in the morning. The various fish mongers would all be there to make their selection, the fish delivered and on the fish mongers slab, usally by 8:00 am.

 

I can't, for the-life-of-me, remember where the wholesale fish market was in Sheffield or even if there was one. What I do remember is an organization called The Trawler Fish Company. They brought fish into the city by the train load and most fish mongers my family dealt with bought from them. Their depot was in one of the arches under the approach to the the old Victoria Station.

 

All a long time ago

 

Regards

[Mantaspook]

Some interesting facts from a bygone era, thanks for that, I've learned something new today.