More exciting stuff from Slough. (You can catch up with all the amazing things I have ever written about Slough here, here, here, here, here and here.)

There is a stuffed dog in a glass cabinet on Platform 5 at Slough station. The inscription on the plaque at the base of the cabinet is titled “Station Jim”.

I see Station Jim every day. It’s kind of spooky knowing that he’s dead and stuffed - on display to the world since the late 1890s. It seems that he his remembered fondly by people who have long sinced left Slough - all over the world. Including someone called Krissie who grew up in Slough but now lives in Australia. (Krissie has reproduced the words on the plaque in front of Station Jim on her blog entry from a few days ago.)

Although I’m not very fond of dogs myself - it’s quite a touching story of the life of Station Jim. Seeing him there - with the plaque and all that - makes me wonder: Station Jim lived such a simple and uncomplex life - but it was a life that moved people to want to remember him in this way after he died. By the time I die - I will have worked a hard and infinitely more complex lifetime trying to leave my own mark on society - and yet in all likelihood a contribution so inconsequentiallly undeserving of recognition in the same way as that was afforded to Station Jim. Depressing isn’t it? Still - I find the idea of being stuffed and on display in a glass cabinet very spooky.