Recently I was stood outside Huddersfield Railway Station waiting for my Replacement Bus Service. I was eating much needed food from a nearby fast food outlet and contemplating my next move. Other match-goers had gone home but I had over 50 minutes to wait for my bus. We’d already been to a few of our post-match regular spots and so I was contemplating somewhere new or different to pass the time now. I stood in St George’s Square, behind the statue of Harold Wilson, and pondered where I should waste my next hour. And pondered and pondered. After deliberation that ate into much of my allotted time, I walked down to the familiar setting of The Sportsman, realising that there wasn’t anywhere different to go at all. But whilst I deliberated, I cast my eye over the currently scaffold-covered George hotel opposite the station; a place I had been in once with my Dad. It’s downstairs public bar had stood as a firm and available option to match-goers for years, and yet I’d onl
There’s a set of garages to rent as storage units near my workplace. One of them is taken by a local florist that uses it to store flower arrangements for various events, that are more often than not funerals. As such, at least once a week at 8am I will pass a car being loaded up with flowers arranged into heart shaped patterns or the letters M U M. It is a grounding reminder that, as I mentally grumble my way through the upcoming arbitrary grievances of my ordinary working day, a group of family and friends locally is going through the hardest time. It provides much needed perspective on days when I could do with being reminded of all that I have to be thankful for. These little moments explain to me why it is possible for us to share a communal loss when a celebrity passes away. Grief is often a personal and lonely experience, shared between a minority of people in your life. When a co-worker loses a relative or friend, it has little affect on me, bar signing of