Sheffield Central

A rainy Saturday in December and the Sheffield Central "meet the members" morning took place at the Sheffield Trade & Labour Club. I spoke to a number of people and got a feeling for the other candidates standing for nomination. I felt at home, my identity restored to the city of so many memories and experiences. The local members were very amenable to being "harrassed" by one candidate after another. However, just like in 2004, a lady approached me to ask three questions. This time the questions were:

1. What do I think of ID cards?
2. What is my position on detention for 42 days?
3. What is my view on the replacement of Trident?

Anyhow, after the event, I went to Meadowhall and almost fell of my seat when I discovered it was £2 for a single journey from the city centre to Meadowhall on Supertram. I should have guessed though - it is run by Stagecoach. Sheffield used to have such a brilliant public transport system, cheap reliable and frequent. I remember the 2p bus journeys on the coloured square tickets.

Just enough time to then visit my Mum's grave in City Road Cemetery and it was back on the train. Though the cemetery is never a happy place to visit, the journey home brought a smile to my face: the train provided by East Midlands Trains - a replacement for Midland Mainline, was straight out the 1980s. It was so old that it took "years off me!".

Returning to London, I found out that Nikki had been voted out of X-Factor. Life is so unpredictable, eventhough you may think things last forever, inevitably they have a habit of falling down before your eyes.