Sometimes, a newspaper story just takes my breath away, and a great example was published online yesterday: The Financial Times story about Sarah de Lagarde’s horrific accident on the Tube last year. This is partly because it’s a story that I’d completely missed previously, and because the story itself is so alarming, but it’s also attributable to Madison Marriage’s brilliant writing.

I would have guessed that people falling between a train and a platform was an exceptionally rare event: it’s the stuff of nightmares. To find out that it happens on the Underground every other day feels alarming, even considering the huge number of journeys.

The stage is set for the Great North Run, which remains the world’s largest half-marathon. Starting in Newcastle, the participants run down to the coast at South Shields.

It’s the first ‘proper’ Great North Run weekend in several years: 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic, 2021 took a ‘modified’ pandemic-friendly route, 2022 saw a sombre event with the associated smaller runs cancelled due to Elizabeth II’s death.

Sir Mo Farah has also chosen this year’s race to be the finale of his career as a professional athlete. He’s won the Great North Run six times to date, and the Metro has changed the cubic sign en route at Heworth to feature his silhouette. Local radio wags have called it the Metmo.

The Red Arrows will fly past at 1135, and shake our house as they do so.

I don’t think there’s been a year in the decades I’ve lived in the North East when I haven’t known and sponsored at least one person in the run. I’ve never taken part myself… obviously… but Wendy has done one of the shorter runs before. Perhaps more shockingly, despite living within spitting distance of the route, neither of us has ventured out to spectate at the main Great North Run.

Will that change today? We’ll see…

The Holy Jesus Hospital in Newcastle is a Grade II* listed building, which started life as an Augustinian Friary in 1291. The hospital bit was built in 1682. These days, it’s a load of offices, so don’t go thinking you can have a poke round.

For my part, despite having lived in the North East for two decades, I’d never passed the building on foot until today. I’ve never made a special effort to see it, and it is well tucked away.

The tucking is due to the disastrous 1960s town planning decisions taken in Newcastle, which almost saw this historic building demolished. It was ultimately ‘saved’—but now has the Central Motorway thundering past it just a few metres away, and is cut off from the city by the multi-lane Swan House Roundabout. It can only be accessed by a series of underpasses. It became a local history museum shortly after being ‘saved’, but this closed in 1995.

It’s not somewhere it’s easy to just happen across… although I managed to do just that when wandering the area.

In 2012, I blogged about Benwell Roman Temple.

This is the world’s only temple to Antenociticus (also called Anociticus for short), which must mean he’s a local Geordie god, I suppose, alongside the likes of Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer.

Antenociticus’s head—or, at least, the head of his statue—was found here in 1862, and is now in the Great North Museum. Apparently, his hair style suggests either a connection to the Greek gods or a Celtic deer god.

Eleven years is a long time to wait for a pay-off, but please meet Antenociticus:

I’m not sure his hair is all that different to how mine looks if I let it grow out, and—weirdly—no-one has ever mistaken me for a Greek god. Nor a deer, for that matter.

For the avoidance of doubt, Shaun the Sheep did not feature in Roman Britain, but is here as part of a disastrous charity art trail. Perhaps upstaging the local god unleashed a curse.

In the years since I wrote the original post, another carved head of Antenociticus has been found down the road at Bishop Auckland, probably from a statue in a bath house. Oh, and he’s been recreated in Lego.

I’ve also realised that Antenociticus previously lived at the (now demolished) Newcastle University Museum of Antiquities, which I visited a few times between lectures as a medical student. I recently very much enjoyed reading this account of the museum’s outreach work, written by Lindsay Allason-Jones just as the museum closed its doors.

Across the Tyne and Wear Metro, new signs have appeared.

Previously, the position at which the drivers’ cab of the Metrocars should stop in stations was marked with a diamond-shaped “S” sign. Of course, Metrocars used to differ in length, shorter services operating on Sundays, but the front always stopped in the same position. This practice ended about a decade ago, and the facility to vary the train lengths ended when carriages were permanently coupled together during refurbishment, leaving a redundant drivers’ cab at one end of each.

Recently, the diamonds have been joined by new signs indicating the point in each station where the front of the shiny new trains should stop. These are required as, later this year, the 43-year-old trains will start to be replaced by new Class 555 trains with a fixed length of five carriages. And, I can only assume, slightly longer trains mean slightly different stopping positions.

This bus depot in the Jesmond area of Newcastle is just seven years shy of celebrating its centenary. It was designed by Marshall and Tweedy, and constructed by T Clements & Sons. Built on a former public park, its distinctive art deco style was intended to fit in with the upmarket surroundings of the suburb: it’s hard not to wonder if we properly value such considerations in new buildings today. It is now Grade II listed.

It was most recently used by Arriva, a subsidiary of Germany’s national rail operator. Arriva sold the building in 2019, but continued to use it on a leased basis. It’s hard not to wonder why the political opposition to nationalisation of public services applies only to services being run by the UK government.

In October 2022, Arriva closed the site where 180 staff members worked. In a statement, Arriva promised to “ensure there would be no impact on services.” In 2023, Arriva decided to stop operating several routes which were “deemed unsustainable following the closure of the operator’s Jesmond depot.” It’s hard not to wonder why that wasn’t foreseeable.

In the 1960s, there was a grand plan for a new motorway-grade bridge over the Tyne, known as the Central Motorway East Bypass.. This was designed to relieve the pressure of traffic from the Tyne Bridge, which is still a pinch-point on the local road network sixty years on.

Though the Central Motorway East Bypass was never built, remnants of it intriguingly remain. Most notably, when the Central Motorway East was built—now the A167(M)—three spurs were constructed to connect with the new bridge. Two of these were never used, and just sit as unused road space, painted over with white hatch marks. Over the water, spurs also still exist on the Gateshead Viaduct, designed to connect the other end of the bridge. These are all quite conspicuously odd when driving past them—visible turnoffs to nowhere—but not as readily visible to pedestrians.

But one spur of the Central Motorway East was used, at least temporarily, and so it highly visible to people walking past it. Seemingly unfathomable to safety-conscious eyes today, a ‘temporary’ ramp was constructed off the spur, allowing direct access to the motorway from a tiny local road called Camden Street. This ‘temporary’ ramp ended up being used for about forty years. Nowadays, it’s gated off, though I frequently find myself strolling past it. There are also student flats which directly overlook it: perhaps the only student flats in Britain which overlook a disused motorway junction?

I suppose it can be considered a relic of a bridge that never existed… or perhaps, a relic of an era when we envisioned cars as the future.

My emotional response to this piece of abandoned tarmac is surprisingly complex. It’s a stark reminder of how our own lives often bear similar vestiges of unfulfilled plans. Each of us has dreams and grand designs that, for one reason or another, never fully materialise. Sometimes, these unrealised aspirations leave visible imprints, serving as poignant reminders of the paths not taken or goals not achieved.

However, much like the unused sections of the Central Motorway East, these remnants are not necessarily markers of failure. They possess the capacity to intrigue, to provoke curiosity, and to inspire introspection. They are tangible proof of our ability to dream and to plan—even if the outcome doesn’t align with our initial visions. Unfulfilled plans, despite their inherent sense of disappointment, play a pivotal role in shaping us. They influence our future decisions and contribute richly to our personal narratives.

Just as the remnants of the unbuilt bridge add an unexpected layer of interest to Newcastle’s cityscape, our unrealised dreams—visible or not—add to the complex tapestry of our lives.