Description

The moors had just been opened after the foot and mouth disaster. I’d come out to see how things had changed, and found the peak as empty as a winter weekday. All across the moor the paths were green with grass, sheep were nowhere to be seen. At the bridge over Siney Sitch I smelled the dampness of the glint of water still in the bog, newts flickering at its margins and a Golden-Ringed Dragonfly hawking over the rushes. Waiting for the light and emptying my large format camera of flies the twilight turned a soft, gentle yellow, time to make two transparencies. I turned and half walked, half ran back to Hathersage and the train back to industrial South Yorkshire. I was back the next day to climb once more on the boulders below Burbage, with the sound of Elgar rejoicing through my head. © Simon Brown