One year on – Remembering the Welland Valley

Today marks an anniversary for me, though not a celebratory one, for it is a year to the day that I bade farewell to Rockingham in my beloved Welland Valley. Saying goodbye to friends, my job and a woman that I still adore was one of most traumatic experiences of my life. Leaving was extremely painful, I was numb but knew that if I let the grass grow under my feet I would get stuck in a rut and fester in Peterborough, a town I had long since fallen out of love with. It took me four days from leaving my home in Rockingham to arriving in Snowdonia, alone, shell-shocked and disbelieving to begin a new chapter in my life.

For over a decade it had been an impossible dream for me to come and live in these mountains, but a year later, here I am with lots of wonderful new friends and a photography career going from strength to strength…I only wish I hadn’t had to follow this dream alone. It wasn’t meant to be like this, but nothing lasts forever and life sometimes moves in surprising and unpredictable ways.

So yes, today I have been thinking about people I may never see again and the place itself which, love it as I do, I’m not sure I could return to, the memories are excruciating and as vivid now as they were the day I left. Though it was my home for three amazing years, I suppose I just don’t belong there anymore. People move on with their lives; if only I could too.

I grew up in Peterborough, a city endowed with many superb green-spaces but I always envied those who lived in villages. When I got the opportunity to move to Rockingham I had to pinch myself. That move coincided with a burgeoning interest in landscape photography. I’d always carried a camera in the mountains but back in Peterborough there wasn’t that much to inspire me to develop my photography; in Rockingham, however, I quickly realised that although there were no mountains, there was beautiful landscapes in abundance, and the gateway to these places was my own back door.

I lost no time in exploring the surrounding countryside and as I didn’t then drive my explorations were on foot and soon I began to develop an intimate knowledge of the valley. In a rough triangle formed by the Langtons in the west, Harringworth in the east and north to Uppingham I walked countless miles acquainting myself with my ‘new’ home.

There was so much to discover; country roads led me through quaint villages, miles of public footpaths guided me to secret places hidden from view and the Jurassic Way had me eyeing a limestone escarpment which in turn, via remnants of the ancient Rockingham Forest, delivered me onto my favourite hill which I named ‘Livesey Pike’.

And then there was the man made contributions to the scene; the magnificent Welland Viaduct, Eyebrook Reservoir and the Rockingham Castle Estate, almost literally my back garden on which I regularly trespassed during the golden hours of dawn and dusk.

As my wanderings progressed and my photography improved it became clear while looking at other local photographer’s work that I had tapped into something they had missed. It took a while to figure it out but when I did it revealed to me the secret of landscape photography, the thing that magazines and online tutorials never tell you.

I worked in Corby, a tough ex steel-town which in recent years has started to find its feet after decades of degeneration. Every day, while walking home I would eagerly await a special moment, the moment when upon reaching the top of Rockingham Hill I would in front of me, see a vast panorama of the Welland Valley; Home. Without fail, that view (which haunts me still) filled me with joy, knowing that in ten minutes I would be down there with the love of my life and all thoughts of the bustling town I had left behind completely forgotten. The penny had dropped…I was taking memorable photographs of home because I profoundly loved the place. It spoke to me and I listened; I opened my heart to it, embraced it as my own and felt its pulse through the 12 seasons I was lucky enough to spend there. It is a wonderful and still largely undiscovered place which will remain sacred to me, if tainted, for the rest of my life. It is there that I learned the true meaning of love and the heartbreak that is the price we sometimes pay. It is also where I became a photographer and learned another lesson which, for landscape photographers is the most important of all…if you don’t love the landscape, move on until you find a landscape that moves you to that most beautiful of emotions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ by nicklivesey on May 6, 2014.