Back at Stalybridge Railway Station, waiting for a pint, a pie and looking out on the hills.

Now you can’t get enough of a good place and when I last visited Stalybridge Railway Station I wrote that I had fond memories of the place.

Back in the mid 1970s it was where we would catch the train to the North East on rolling stock which must have dated from the early 50s.

There was even a sign in one of the lavatories which announced that ‘in the event of inclement weather water can be obtained from the guard’ which I always took to be if the pipes had frozen.

But someone will put me straight on that and no doubt also the exact date when the old buffet on platform 4 was enlarged and transformed into its present very pleasant restaurant which I think was 1998.

So with the family over for Christmas from Italy I think we shall show them the buffet.

We may not be able to offer them a steam train from Piccadilly but time it right and we should get there in the late afternoon just as the light fades making the bar all the more inviting and a tad atmospheric.

And we will have shown them a few clips from Brief Encounters with Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson staring longing at each other over a cup of railway tea with a hint of steam and smoke in the distance and the noise of the buffet all around them.

I may even send them Peter’s paintings which he did after his own visit last week.

They are two of a series of Stalybridge inspired by that visit and I have to say having rarely been back since we lived in Ashton they bring back some equally fond memories.

Painting; the Buffet at Stalybridge and Stalybridge Station,  © 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk