It was proving to be quite an energetic week after all, yet Sue felt blissfully relaxed, having spent the first four days of her holiday driving through Somerset or tramping across the hills of Dorset with the sole aim of taking prize-winning photographs for a forth-coming competition.

      Amateur photography was a hobby Sue had enjoyed for more than a decade, and now she owned a prestigious camera which she pointed towards any subject that held the promise of a good print - trees, sunsets, ploughed fields, spiders' webs - if a scene attracted Sue's eye she had this overpowering urge to capture it for posterity.

      Late on the Wednesday afternoon, she was crouching behind a rock high on a shady embankment, reloading her Nikon F3 in readiness for a cluster of exciting black and white railway shots, when she saw a boy, about ten years old, toppling head over heels down a steep slope on the opposite side and landing face down, apparently unconscious, only inches from the track.

      Sue didn't know much about trains, but a green signal strongly suggested one was due.  Worse, if the boy were to roll over or fling out an arm she knew the consequences could be catastrophic.  So she hastily gathered up her equipment and scrambled down the embankment, leaping over the line like a gazelle barely seconds before a multiple-unit came hurtling towards her out of a nearby tunnel.

      "Are you okay?" she gasped as the thing thundered by.  By now she was feeling extremely shaky herself.  They could both have been killed!

      The boy opened startled eyes and winced with pain as he tried to move.

      "Do you think you've broken anything?" Sue asked gently.

      "Not sure," he moaned.  "What happened?  I feel as if I've been kicked all over and my ankle hurts like hell.  Is this what they call a sprain?"

      "Could be.  You had a very narrow escape!  You could easily have lost an arm there, if not your life!"

      After checking him carefully for other injuries, Sue picked the lad up and carried him bodily to her car.

      "I could drive you home," she panted, "but perhaps it's best if we get that ankle seen to first."

      She strapped him securely into the front passenger seat, then followed his directions to a nearby hospital where she outlined the circumstances to a receptionist.  The patient gave a sheepish farewell grin of gratitude as he was wheeled away by an attractive young nurse.

      After this unexpected errand of mercy Sue felt too jumpy to take any more pictures, so she returned to her seafront hotel and relaxed for an hour in the bar.

      It wasn't until after dinner, when Sue sat in her room cleaning lenses, that she realised she'd lost two precious rolls of film somewhere near the railway line.  She was sure she'd tucked them safely into her gadget bag, but they must have bounced out again as she scrambled crab-fashion down the bank in her urgent bid to reach the boy.  Damn!  If only she'd zipped up the bag before making her reckless descent!  Now all she had to show for four days' efforts were a couple of twilight views of an empty railway line!

      She thought back.  What precisely was on those missing rolls of film?  Apart from a few unpretentious shots of Monday's sunset, the rest were mostly of farmland, one of the nominated topics for her competition.

      Perhaps she still had enough time to revisit most of her locations before the weekend, but would the light be right?  Would she see again what first attracted her eye, or would every retake look contrived and uninspired?

      In good heart, the following morning Sue began retracing her steps with three fresh rolls of film, but the sky grew progressively overcast.  Some of the moodier cloud effects were mildly encouraging, but the obliging cow she'd encountered on Tuesday was no longer gazing wistfully over the fence, and gulls were no longer picking at yesterday's freshly ploughed field.  Even the scene at the railway cutting looked bland and forlorn, lacking the crisp amber sunlight of the previous evening.

      Sue spent a good hour combing the grass and bushes on the embankment and searching behind the rock where she'd shaded the camera for reloading, but her efforts proved futile.

      "Cheer up," she told herself as she trudged wearily back towards the car, "it's not as if you've lost a week's wages or your house keys, it was only a couple of rolls of film."

      All the same, she couldn't help anticipating the judges patronising comments as they grudgingly awarded her a consolation prize.

      "Nice try, Sue, but hardly up to your usual standard."  If only they could have seen the ones that got away!

      Her week's holiday was soon over and on Monday morning Sue found herself back at work, inwardly smarting as she recalled further potentially prize-winning shots on her lost rolls of film.  It was rare to find a flock of sheep who didn't start wandering away the moment she was ready to press the shutter.  One of her sunsets had included a fortuitious bird, poised perfectly for balanced composition, and she remembered the patient gull who'd graciously allowed her time to focus in for a real close-up - all in vain!

      That evening Sue was busy in the darkroom making large prints from some of her more promising efforts, when the phone rang.  She let the machine answer it as her caller had picked a bad moment for opening the darkroom door.  When she finally emerged, she replayed a message inviting her to contact someone called Richard.

      Racking her brains to place the name, Sue dialled the number given and began by apologising that she'd been closetted in the dark-room.

      "That doesn't surprise me," said a cheery voice.  "You have an eye for fine pictures."

      "Do I know you?" she asked, ever suspicious of devious salesmen.

      "I doubt it," he replied, "though I'm beginning to learn plenty about you.  I guess you know you're missing a couple of rolls of film?"

      "You found them?" Sue squealed in a voice that must have sounded quite childish.  "But where and how?"

      "I saw them lying on the ground last Saturday, so naturally I picked them up since it's not a good idea to let film go damp overnight."

      "Sure, but how did you know they were mine?"

      "Ah!  Long story.  I'm about to put them in the post, now that I know for certain whom they belong to.  But I thought I'd better phone first in case you wanted me to use registered mail."

      "Either way," she reflected sadly, "you'll have missed tonight's post.  I really wish you'd rung earlier, I could have processed those negatives this evening.  The competition closing date's on Wednesday."

      "Then I'm doubly glad I phoned.  Excuse me asking," he went on, "but are you a professional photographer?  Your work is quite excellent, apart from the oddly tilted shop window."

      Sue felt offended.  "What tilted window?  I never took a shop window - and if I had I wouldn't have tilted it!  Are you sure they're my films?"

      "You tell me.  I've got a series of sunsets here, some assorted rural landscapes and farm animals, and a superb close-up of a seagull."

      "They definitely sound like mine," she said.  "But how did you know?"

      "Aha!  Don't worry, I'll reveal the full story in my covering letter."

      Since she'd lost all hope of making the Wednesday deadline, Sue told him there was no rush, and gave him her full address.  Richard went on to describe how he made a habit of filming anything on wheels and had found her two films lying beneath signalling cables at the side of the railway.

      After a lengthy chat, Sue thanked him again and went to finish her work in the darkroom.  She laid her prints out to dry, and was preparing for an early night when she heard five long rings on her front door bell.  Whoever it was clearly didn't intend going away till she'd answered it.

      "Who is it?" she called nervously as she struggled into a dressing gown.

      "Special delivery," replied a hearty voice.  "I have with me a large seagull!"

      "I did say there was no hurry," Sue reminded him as she opened the door.  "Though if I'd known you lived locally, I'd have driven over and collected them myself."

      "Then you'd have used at least three gallons of petrol," he grinned.  "I live over fifty miles away.  But I was due to come this way tomorrow, so I thought - why not tonight?  I mean, you might not have been here to thank me so sweetly in the morning."

      Sue duly thanked him, pointing out that the negatives could easily have been slipped through her letter box.

      "Sure," he grinned, "but not these!"  And he produced a flat package about two feet square.  "May I come in?"

      Sue tightened the belt of her dressing-gown.  "Sure.  Sorry, I was about to take a bath ...  er, do take a seat.  I'll be right back."

      She darted to the bedroom and made herself presentable.  When she returned her visitor had his back to her, admiring some of her framed masterpieces on the wall.  He stood tall with well-groomed hair and a sunburnt neck, though his distinguished bearing was marred by a shabby thorn-ripped leather jacket.

      He turned enquiringly, and Sue answered his unspoken query with a nod of pride.  Then he grinned and slowly unwrapped his parcel to reveal an enormous seagull printed in warm sepia tones on velvet-smooth paper.

      "It was this guy that tempted me to come visiting," he said with an earnest stare.

      "It's great!" she exclaimed.  "Even better than I'd hoped.  But how did you know where I lived?  And don't say a little bird told you!"

      "Here," he said, bringing out two smaller prints, "these are the ones that laid a trail to your door."

      Sue saw a tilted shop window, slightly out of focus, together with a recognisable sunset - and above them, an infectious grin that looked undeniably smug.

      "Amateur detective work," he said.  "I assume the shop-front's just a wind-on frame since it's the first on the reel.  Nevertheless I was intrigued in case it represented some new art-form.  After I'd printed it, I found the shop-keeper's name in the Swanage phone book, and these sunsets show a recognisable foreground which I traced easily to your seaside hotel.  Your first-floor viewpoint could only have been from one particular balcony, so I made tactful enquiries, and skimmed through the hotel register.  I thought it wiser to phone first though, in case I wasn't quite the detective I hoped."

      Sue stood in silent awe, her embarrassed gaze finding welcome sanctuary in the seagull.

      "Naturally," he added playfully, "I'd be effervescent with gratitude if you'd done the same for me."

      Their eyes met.  "I am extremely grateful," she said, "and most impressed by your detective work.  Tell me, what paper is this printed on?"

      "It's a special import I use from Germany," he said.  "An ivory satin matt.  Did you want to see the rest?  Naturally they're all yours to keep."

      Sue sat down and scrutinised each print intently as one by one they were presented for her approval.  This took a while, since Richard had gone to the trouble of enlarging over thirty pictures.  Finally the remainder were handed to her in a small folder.

      "Nine out of ten," Richard grinned, "deducting one point for the lousy shop window."

      Sue quickly explained she always wound on three frames at the start of every film.

      "It's lucky you do!" he replied.  "Though I rarely use a conventional camera myself.  Most of my current work's done on Hi-8 Video."

      Sue must have looked instinctively scornful.

      "Do I detect a trace of contempt?" he asked coldly.  "Each to his own, please.  I'm a railway photographer by trade and these days there's a big demand for sound and movement.  Quite by chance I decided to take a fill-in close-up of some signal rods, and happened to focus on the very spot where you carelessly left your life's work."

      Sue explained what had happened and he quickly mellowed, retaliating with impish glee by asking if she'd taken any good railway snaps.  She rose to the bait.

      "Snaps?  Don't be patronising, I put a lot of time and effort into every one of my pictures."

      "I can tell - though that's not so easy in my line of work.  Many a time I've been caught out, finding an ideal vantage point only to have some clown wander past my lens at the crucial moment, or getting my long-awaited train obscured behind some grimy diesel shunter.  In my world you can't yell to the driver for a retake.  I film whatever happens when it happens, come rain or shine, with rarely a second chance.  I can drive hundreds of miles and miss a train by ten seconds, or hear it coming while I'm still frantically trying to set up.  Still," he shrugged, "that's the name of the game.  And it's a living."

      "And you clearly enjoy it," she said.  "I envy you.  I currently earn my keep in an insurance office.  I went back to work this morning and didn't realise how much I hated it till I sat at my dreary desk.  Look at that gorgeous cow of mine.  There's true contentment for you!"

      "Sure," he conceded, "but her surroundings are rather restricted.  Your gull gets to see much more of the landscape.  I often wish I could attach my camera to a well-trained bird."

      "I suppose you could hire a helicopter!"

      "Please!  Those fiendish contraptions?  Many a time I've waited a good hour for a steam special, and just as it comes pounding up the grade I see some damned helicopter swoop down in front of my loco like a tin dragonfly, ruining my shot and totally wrecking the sound-track, giving me footage I can't sell.  One of these days I'll come prepared with a ground-to-air missile!  And only last week I had some damned git with a 500cc motorbike stopping by the roadside to watch Mallard with fourteen on, and he hadn't the wit to switch off his engine!  Then there's the delightfully fickle British weather.  At least you're warm and dry in your office.  You don't happen to overlook Paddington Station or a marshalling yard, I suppose?"

      Sue replied, tongue in cheek, that if ever she changed her job it would be one of the first essentials she'd insist on.  Then, fearing this might have sounded rude, she added, "Can I offer you drink of some sort - beer?  Sherry?  Whisky and soda?"

      "It's tempting, but not while I'm driving, thanks.  My career would be in tatters if I ever got breathalysed."

      Applauding his principles, Sue suggested coffee, to which he readily agreed.

      "You live alone?" he asked, following her through to the kitchen.

      "No," she retorted, "I always keep three muscular hunks hidden in my wardrobe, just in case a male visitor tries anything on."

      "I doubt anything of yours would fit me," he countered at once.  "Sorry!  I have this irksome habit of being flippant far too soon in a relationship - not that I see this as a relationship - not yet, anyway." He paused.  "Sorry, again, I'm a bumbling idiot.  I'd better wait outside."

      "No need," she said, "though perhaps you'd feel more at home in my dark-room?  You can safely turn on the light and see my latest pictures.  They're all quite decent.  Did you print all those others yourself?"

      "Yes," he admitted, "though it was never my intention to pry.  My aim was simply to return your property - but that meant getting the negatives developed, and I prefer doing that myself rather than trust the local chemist.  Anyway, I kind of got carried away once I saw the quality of your work."

      Sue shared her belief that quality began with having a first-class lens, and she proudly showed him her Nikon.  He laughed.

      "How dinky!  I have to cart around masses of equipment besides just a camera," he said.  "And there's rarely good access by car.  Most days you'll find me tramping across muddy fields with a sturdy tripod, camera, heavy batteries and sound gear.  Who knows - by the time I'm forty I may have arms like a gorilla."

      He turned to face her, transparently curious about her age.

      "By the time I'm thirty," Sue said evenly, "I hope I'll have learned not to scatter rolls of film around the countryside."

      "That would be a great waste," he said.  "Do you often photograph trains?"

      Sue confessed she saw nothing remotely picturesque in modern trains, which to her were no more than boxes on wheels.

      "Ah," he enthused, "but some of us still wallow in the age of steam.  And what about the rustic beauty in an old country station, eh?  With gently curving platforms, hanging signs under the awning, a few milk-churns on a porter's trolley, a trusty iron footbridge and lower quadrant signals adding that extra hint of excitement down at the far end?  And when you hear that first distant whistle warning you that everything's about to spring back to life, it's sheer magic!"

      "You may be nearly forty," Sue observed, "and I admit I hardly know you, but I detect the eagerness of a little boy."

      "I'm nowhere near forty," came the indignant denial.

      "Fine!  It's of no consequence to me, as long as you're happy in your work."

      He nodded.  "I am, very.  And it's sad that you're not.  When did you first take an interest in photography?"

      Sue told him how she began as a teenager taking holiday snaps, and soon learned to look far more carefully into the viewfinder.  After that she found it hard to understand people who simply pointed a camera and clicked away without realising they'd chopped off the subject's feet or had a tree growing out of someone's head.  Sue revealed how she liked to spend at least five minutes analysing a scene first.

      "I look for good foreground detail," she said, "I check the background for unwanted distractions, study the lines and the focal point, making sure it's not dead centre.  I try half-a-dozen variations before ever thinking about depth of focus or shutter speed."

      Richard seemed to understand perfectly.

      "Time well spent," he agreed, "as evidenced in the other room.  But by the time I'd done all that, my train would have reached Carlisle!  No, if you could accompany me on a shoot one day you'd see quite a different side to the business."

      "I'd love to," Sue said with thinking.  The idea was quite impractical though.  She'd already taken her full quota of annual holiday and it would be at least a month before she caught up on her backlog of office work.

      "Maybe some time in the future," she added dreamily.

      "But I claim the future begins right now," he said.  "I realise you're encarcerated all week, but what about Saturday or Sunday?"

      Sue already had provisional plans for the weekend and she was about to say so.

      "I'll be filming activity down on the Bluebell," he went on.  "Join me, and I'll get you access to places normally barred to the public.  Afterwards if you turn out a good set of prints, you may find you can sell them to a railway magazine.  I've a number of colleagues, always on the look-out for good illustrations.  Every day I see countless folk milling around with their cameras, but few can turn out pictures as good as yours.  Think about it.  I'll give you a call on Friday and see how you're fixed."

      He didn't though.  Sue dialled Richard's number repeatedly on Friday evening and again throughout Saturday, but got no reply.

      For most of Saturday night she remained wide awake, bugged by Richard's empty promises, while visualising a variety of quaint country stations, and thinking about the hordes of enthusiasts who gathered every weekend around an assortment of rusting steam engines.

      She got up around six-thirty, made herself a thin slice of toast and a strong cup of coffee, then drove deep into the heart of Sussex looking for signs that might lead her in the direction of the Bluebell Railway.

      At one point she stopped to study the map, and found herself right beside a railway line.  She got out of the car and waited with camera poised, but her attention was soon distracted by a swelling chorus of bird-song.  Sue had never really listened before.  She remembered Richard's remark about filming sound and movement.  It came to her as an intriguing new dimension, being able to capture the full stereophonic majesty of bird-song and replay it as an adjunct to a photographic slide show.  She thought again about ciné photography which had so far failed to appeal, with its inherent lack of clarity.  What did a Hi-8 video camera cost, she wondered, and would she really need the mass of extra equipment Richard had described?

      A short electric train suddenly sidled past, its jarring two-tone horn making Sue jump as it crept up on her unawares.  Disappointed, she took one quick shot, then listened to the diminishing clickety-clack as it trundled away towards a nearby station.  Sue felt inclined to follow.

      Sue prepared her camera and wandered freely into the tall grass that grew among the former sidings and goods yard.  She stood some twenty yards back from an old loading gauge and used it to frame the tranquil setting.  All it really lacked was an old-fashioned steam train, panting and wheezing as it paused to gather passengers.

      An unaccountable sadness seemed to pervade the scene, and Sue found herself questioning the wisdom of sacrificing nostalgia on the altar of cost-effectiveness!  Although the occasional two-coach train provided light relief, it wasn't the same as seeing huge plumes of smoke billowing like giant cauliflowers out of a stove-pipe chimney or hearing the persistent hiss of a breathing, working steam engine.

      Where had all those old locomotives gone?  Sue remembered a television programme showing them marshalled in rows like doomed elephants, as deathly silent as a long-forgotten symphony.

      Yes, she admitted, there was some appeal in Richard's world after all.  Good photography needn't be confined to pastoral beauty when she was surrounded by such fascinating detail, however mundane.  Sue was surprised to find she'd used a whole roll of film before the next train came into view.

      It stopped just long enough for one passenger to alight - a tall, rather flustered man in a faded leather jacket.  He clambered out with several large boxes and a heavy tripod, then turned as the train moved off and gave Sue a frantic wave.

      "Sue?  It is you!  Thank God.  You've been sent by my guardian angel.  Here, give me a hand!  I'm knackered."

      Sue ran to Richard and received an unexpected hug.

      "It was a pure fluke I just happened to glance out of the window," he panted.  "My damned car packed up last night, so I'm forced back onto public transport.  I was planning to get a taxi from the next station.  I can't believe my luck in seeing you!"

      "Was that why you didn't phone?"

      "No.  I have a woman who comes and cleans for me, and she very kindly threw away the piece of paper with your phone number on.  Whatever brought you to this place?"

      "I thought I might take a few snaps down at the Bluebell Railway.  You never know - I might manage to get one or two in focus!  I guess you can show me the way?"

      "You clown!  Oh, it's so good to see you.  And you took my advice and came to explore the railway scene.  If I weren't such a gentleman, I'd kiss you."

      "Don't be impetuous.  It's best to take plenty of establishing shots before you move in for a close-up, and I'd like to judge your professional skills first.  My car's this way."

      The day proved fruitful for both of them.  That evening Sue sat with Richard beside her television and watched the results of his day's takings.  Afterwards they both adjourned to the dark room to develop her own films.

      And not many weeks elapsed before Sue gave in her notice at work in order to accompany Richard on a comprehensive rail-fanning tour of the United States.

THE END

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Except where specifically noted, all music and stories on this web site are my own creations.   You may not use any of them for any purpose without written permission from me.     Copyright © 2003 Colin Johnson     All Rights Reserved.