Platform 11

I didn't even know there was a Platform 11 at Newcastle Station - it is not listed on the direction boards. But then they do tend to put the Carlisle trains in odd places, probably to try to hide them as they are so old. At least we could sit in the sun whilst we waited for the doors to open. And I could tell which way the train was going to go out!!

Superb sessions today based on Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, a book I found on my shelves and was so old it just fell apart as I was reading and in the end I had to buy a new copy in order to finish it. I must have read it at least once before, but I really enjoyed this re-read, probably 50 years later. Our sessions gave a lot of background to the book, how it was placed in American history - written on the 1880s, but set in the 1840s, with the Civil War and the Emancipation of slavery in between. Then our tutor posed questions about the satire and attitudes towards slavery and racism and gun culture. Fascinating stuff.