‘Stepping into the Future’ is the third story in the ‘Orchard to Orchard’ series I created in collaboration in 2024, with photographer James Sebright. The series imagines lives interacting with one site in urban Sheffield over a 300-year period, combining creative writing, photography, photomontage and archival research.

It has never been easy to explain, to myself or to other people, that I lost my wife in the war. Everyone thinks of men being killed and women being left without husbands, children without fathers, but not the other way around. The reason is simple enough: I was in a protected profession and Janice was killed in an air-raid. Now I’m the odd one out. The fellows at the Club have that unspoken acknowledgement of the shared horrors of war, of losing friends, of the recurring nightmares from scenes that won’t go away. And yet none of them know the particular loss that I feel, the injustice of it, and the anxiety of how to be the father of a motherless daughter.

Now though, each day I do feel there is a little more hope for the future. Harriet is growing strong and brave and beautiful, so like her mother, and is gifted at the piano. I would love her to become a talented musician. I’ve also been offered a position at the new laboratory on Hoyle Street. Mr Hodges spoke at length about his need for someone with experience in calibrating instruments. I think things may be looking up both for Harriet and for me.

For several years it has only been my Saturday ramblings that have prevented me from sinking into melancholy. Often we catch the train to Hope and then walk home past Bamford Mill, over Bamford Edge and Stanage Edge, down Wyming Brook and then across to Walkley. It’s especially lovely in spring when the hawthorn and horse chestnuts are in blossom, and the air feels fresh. It seems to be a world which has always been here and always will be, and it doesn’t matter what happens to me. I find that comforting. And of course, we always finish at The Blake Hotel, for a convivial afternoon.

Last Saturday, on my ramble, I struck up a conversation with an older man walking his collie at Bamford Mill. He told me his plan for a cycling expedition in Scotland, from Inverness to Glasgow. He had sustained a shrapnel injury to his hip in the war, and was gradually working his way to full health with longer and longer cycle tours. I would like to make a similar adventure for myself, but I shall have to wait until Harriet is a little older and can stay for a few days with cousin Mabel.

The timeless calm I find on my rambling days seems in sharp contrast with how quickly everything is changing in the city. So many old, squalid houses have been cleared away. A couple of years ago they shut down the old furnace on Doncaster Street which has been working for over a hundred years, I think. I don’t know what will become of it. Then there’s the new laboratory – it has huge windows, so much light. When Mr Hodges interviewed me for my new position, I was truly excited for the first time in years. It feels that I’m about step into a futuristic world!

I’m hopeful that there won’t be another war. There can’t be another war – no-one could stomach it any more. We just want progress, we want to look into the future and see brightness and newness. I wonder what it will be like when Harriet reaches the age I am now. And I wonder if there is a widow out there who could find space in her heart for both of us.