Photo Of The Year

The City Daily Photo theme for January is 'your best photo of the year'. So for my entry I'm going with this one that I took on 27th March.

It's probably not the best photo that I've taken during 2015, but it's one that has the most relevance for me for a number of reasons.

This is Barton's 'Ghost Bus'. An old rusted and decayed coach that was built in the 1950s and has spent the last 20 odd years in a farmers field. Only to be rescued and brought back to their garage in Chilwell.

I saw an advert for an event at Barton's that was featuring the bus, so I went along, as I had seen it before. But in the daytime, and wondered what it would look like in the dark. The event included a screening of a short film that had been created by Italian visual artist Roberto Alborghetti, and based on close up photos that Roberto had taken of the Ghost Bus.

After the show, I got to interview Roberto for the Beestonian magazine that I write for. In fact someone else was meant to be covering the event, but couldn't make it, so I did it instead. Serendipity I think they call it. Roberto was pleased with the article and I have been his friend ever since. I also made friends with Marysia, the organiser of the event.

To cut a long story short, this friendship resulted in Gail & I going to Tuscany in October with Marysia, her son and four other travelling companions. Besides seeing different parts of Italy, one of the aims was to get Tuscany twinned with Beeston. To help this along we met two mayors and Marysia presented them with a 'Beeston goody bag' which contained a copy of the Beestonian, a locally produced lace shawl, some postcard and a scale model of the Ghost Bus itself.

I'm not sure if any progress has been made with the twinning, but Gail and I both agree that we loved seeing Tuscany and plan to make many more visits to Italy.