Sandy Lane

Sandy Lane.

Now, it’s a scruffy narrow walkway that runs behind the fences of a housing estate that was built in the 70’s (an estate that neatly destroyed the vast play area of our childhood). Dog shit and household waste items litter the narrow gulley and there’s a feeling of oppressiveness generated by the backs of the houses, as if by being there you’re some kind of intruder. You shouldn’t be there. Damned cheek!! This was our lane! Our play area. Every kid in Castleton had one or another kind of adventure in these (now gone) fields years ago. (Although strangely and inexplicably we never bumped into people like Philip Lomax or Paul Kershaw for whom this area must have seemed wild and dangerous bandit country).

Turn your back on the shitty impudent fences and look towards Gaunts fields however and little has changed. Further down the Lane (where we dug holes) the rise of the meadow, fenced by a few rotting pieces of wood, rusty poles barbed wire and hawthorn bushes, is still there, like the hill on your Windows PC or the Hill where the teletubbies lived. Covered in meadow grass, butter cups or clover it’s still the same. You can visualise Robert and Lemon attempting that “palm of my hand” Polaroid shot from the 70’s.

Further up, walking towards Nina Mullens a wide open vista suddenly appears. Gaunts farm to the right still looks like something from the Wooden Tops nestled in a nice little cove at the end of the wide valley with little patches of reeds. It looks like an enormous and misplaced glaciated valley. Strangely it was always largely free from any animals or activity. It disappears from sight a little while as you pass the embarrassing rise that is “Foal Hill” (I still cringe, writing that) and then you’re into a grey area….this bit might belong to Kirkholt or Kirklee Road, it’s definitely a different feel to Sandy Lane, our very own Bandit Country perhaps.

Sandy Lane wasn’t just Sandy Lane though. “Going up” Sandy Lane represented an adventure area to be distinguished from “down Trows Lane” or “up the Vicarage” (who determined these were “down” or “up” I’m not quite sure).

Down or Up could be a whole new issue actually. We might also include “Over”. Up Chesham, Down Meadway, Over Heywood. Springfield Park was a bit confusing; it could be either down or up. Down Sudden, Up Queensway, Down or Up the canal. It’s as if Castleton was the centre of the Universe, from which the direction of every other location was determined.

I think Sandy Lane started way before Sandy Lane itself though. It started for me at a certain point just after Colne Street at the top of Albion Street. The point at which the cobbled road of Albion Street gave way to a stone and cinder path criss crossed with little rivulets that flowed down the slope from the pens above.