I cannot begin to imagine the loss fire victims have suffered...

I HAVE no idea what is happening with the world but I’m expecting a plague of frogs or locusts in the near future.

As humans reliant on a planet, we’re doing our best to knacker it – and each other.

Last week with those two days of unrelenting sunshine were beyond odd. And yes, we know ‘it’s summer’ but with grass blanched to inflammable hay and wood dried to kindling, summer can be dangerous.

Seeing smoke billowing over our house we couldn’t have guessed at the tragedy unfolding nearby. Houses on Woodland Drive up in flames, people losing not only their homes but everything they had.

Ironically houses opposite to a fire station but unable to get an engine out to themselves.

You then put yourselves in the position of those people, you can’t help it. How would you feel if you woke up to a relatively ordinary day but by the end of it, all you owned were the clothes on your back?

I had to exit my own imagination because it was too horrific to think about. You can replace the telly and the sofa, you can’t replace the photos, the souvenirs.

Those poor people and there but for the grace of God go so many of us. They desperately need help and I hope they are getting it.

There is a collection for them and if you Google ‘Just Giving Woodland Drive’ you will find it.

Even a little will help, because a lot of those littles mount up to a lot. And those people need ‘a lot’.

■ We had a walk around the Penny Pie Park gyratory last Sunday and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

There was more green than I thought there would be and the playing area was full of kids enjoying the swings and the ball court.

I hope the bats and birds return. It’s a bit like an old enemy that you can’t rid from your life so the only way forwards is to shake hands and try and get on with each other.

It was certainly a lot easier to get to Pogmoor from up Dodworth Road, no red lights to shoot. And once people realise the left-hand lane is for the school and Broadway only, there will be less horn-tooting.

It was peeing it down with rain and there was the most beautiful (double) rainbow in the sky. Apparently a sign of hope and solidarity – and starting again.

Particularly poignant at the present time, I thought.

■ Hearing about the sequel to The Railway Children sent me on a trip down memory lane this week.

Not only because I used to live a few doors away from the station in Oakworth where Jenny Agutter ran down the platform shouting ‘daddy, my daddy’ but because I was remembering Barnsley train station as it was when I was younger.

I think it had to be one of the prettiest little stations ever, with the ticket office in the entrance and the taxi rank conveniently just outside.

There was a bridge over to the Sheffield side and a boarded-up bit over the lines where you could actually walk across if you couldn’t manage the steps.

I can see it now, it was just lovely. If you were fit of course. Maybe I’m remembering it with my rose-coloured specs on, but then most memories do have a bit of a nostalgic filter on them?

Happy, safe week, folks!