I was sorry to hear of the death of one of Sheffield’s finest, Joe Cocker. I’ve mentioned before his hit with the radical reworking of the Beatles’ song With a Little Help From My Friends and also his Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.

From that tour here’s the live version of Delta Lady.

Joe Cocker (Mad Dogs and Englishmen): Delta Lady

John Robert (Joe) Cocker: 20/5/1944 – 22/12/2014. So it goes.

On our recent trip I seem to have passed through, or close to, a fair few towns in England that have or had teams in the Football League, which gave me some idea of their geographic proximity. Starting with Sheffield, we went on through Derby, bypassed Mansfield, then headed back up to Chesterfield where I photographed the famous crooked spire which lends the nickname Spireites to the local side.

Cheterfield had a large street market on the go the morning we were there. It made the place seem thriving though whether it truly is or not I have no idea.

After that it was up north through Huddersfield and Halifax on our way to Haworth again.

Yet in all these travels I caught sight of not one single football stadium – though I had seen a road sign for Brammall Lane in Sheffield.

The reason for going to Haworth this time was we hadn’t seen as much of it as we would have liked when we were there before.

This certainly wasn’t there in the Bronté’s time. It’s now a stop on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway – one of those preservation railways which reflect the British love of nostalgia but are an important reminder of our industrial heritage.

We didn’t do the Bronté Parsonage this time but explored the old street more. There were more shops open this time including the old style sweetie shop where we bought something called Yorkshire Tablet – as sweet as Orkney Fudge but a bit softer – and had a browse round two second hand bookshops we don’t recall from two years ago. The good lady bought three books and I got a hardback of Tricia Sullivan’s Lethe; goodness knows when I’ll get round to reading it.

In our trip down south we stopped in Sheffield for the night but only had a small wander around the city centre. It was enough to spot this Art Deco beauty which is the Central Library and Graves Art Gallery.

Here’s the doorway:-

And this shows the windows above it:-

More pictures of Art Deco buildings in Sheffield – including a close up of the frieze on the side of building above are on this site.

In the town centre there’s a lovely civic space – called the Peace Gardens, I think – with several water features like this fountain:-

I couldn’t not photograph the Crucible Theatre. My sons were great snooker fans when they were young.