(What's the story) behind the Oasis railway station?

It's familiar to millions of Oasis fans all around the world, but what's the story behind the railway station on the cover of their first number one Some Might Say?

It's the middle of winter, in the mid-90s, and Noel and Liam Gallagher are standing at Cromford railway station in the middle of Derbyshire's picturesque Derwent Valley.

Liam is on a bridge with his right arm raised in the air, saluting at a camera.

Noel is near the edge of the station platform, poised to sprinkle water from a watering can.

Every so often, trains arrive on the opposite platform, which is just out of shot but still very much in use.

Bemused passengers - travelling to Derby and Matlock - stare out of the windows as a man poses with a sink full of dead fish.

"It's such a bonkers scene," says graphic designer and art director Brian Cannon, who created the cover with photographer Michael Spencer Jones.

"It's my favourite of all the sleeves I did for Oasis. I love the record too and it was their first number one."

The location for the photo is a reference to "standing at the station" from the song's lyrics.

"The way it would always work was I would meet Noel prior to any release and discuss what ideas he might have had," says Brian.

"Sometimes he didn't have any ideas and he let me run with it, other times he had very specific ideas, like in this case, because what he said was he wanted all the lyrics of the song illustrated in one picture, and he wrote out the lyrics for me."

But out of all the UK's railway stations, why was Cromford chosen?

The reason relates to the station's history and the controversial Beeching cuts of the 1960s.

The building in the photo dates from 1860 and was the original station building, according to Historic England.

A larger station building then opened on the opposite platform in 1911, and the original became a waiting room.

At the time, Cromford was on the main line between London St Pancras and Manchester, but the line was closed beyond Matlock in 1968.

The remaining line up to Matlock became a single-track railway, making the platform and waiting room on the east side of the station redundant.

Three decades later, this made the station perfect for Oasis.

"The whole point of it was it had to be a disused station," Brian says.

"The idea was if you're standing at a disused station waiting for a train, you're in need of education, which is the next line of the song."

He and the photographer considered and ruled out "loads" of other disused stations, Brian explains.

"By virtue of the fact they were disused, the buildings had disappeared, whereas Cromford looked like a railway station still," he says.

Each person in the photo represents a different character playing out a section of the lyrics.

So Liam, saluting on the bridge, is a reference to "we will find a brighter day", while Noel's watering can represents "in the rain".

Karla Knox, a barmaid from Brian's local pub in Wigan, can be seen at track level with a custom-made umbrella strung with pots and pans - a reference to "she's got dirty dishes on the brain".

Brian's mum is there mopping "the kitchen", and his assistant Matt Sankey plays a beggar - "the man who lives in hell".

The man pushing the "sink full of fishes" is Brian's dad, who constructed the wheelbarrow-sink hybrid with the help of a neighbour.

The only professional model was the dog, who was hired from a theatrical animal agency and had apparently appeared in a movie with Kevin Costner.

The photo was shot on one day - 23 January 1995. The only problem was finding some fish.

"If you look at a map of Britain, Cromford is about as far from the sea as you can get in Great Britain," Brian says.

"So we had to drive to Bakewell to get some fish, so that was a bit of a panic on the day."

Brian says they did attract attention from passengers, but only because of the absurdity of the scene, rather than Noel and Liam's fame.

"They weren't that big [then]," he says.

But the pair's fame grew shortly afterwards when Some Might Say, released on 24 April 1995, became Oasis's first number one in the UK.

A few months later, the "Battle of Britpop" and their chart rivalry with Blur pushed the band to the forefront of the national press.

Their second album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, was released on 2 October and became a worldwide success.

This was in the days before social media, when information did not spread as easily, so only perceptive Oasis fans who lived near Cromford identified the link with the railway station.

Oasis fan Robyn Hixon remembers discovering the link when she was a teenager in about 2001. She lived in Matlock - roughly two miles (3km) away.

"A friend pointed it out to me I think, and then I couldn't believe it and was fascinated," she says.

She visited the station countless times to catch trains before moving to Australia in her 30s.

"It's a nice little claim to fame for Cromford," she says.

"It's a very important song for Oasis too, so to have one of their first big songs related to our quiet little village is beautiful."

As the years passed, the former waiting room became increasingly derelict.

But in 2007, Tim Collis and his husband Ryan Phelps bought the station's master house behind to live in.

The waiting room was included as part of the sale.

"When we bought it, it was in that bad a condition it was in danger of falling down," says Tim.

"There was no glass in the windows, the roof had holes in it, there was nothing inside, just an empty shell."

Despite being an Oasis fan, Tim did not know about the building's connection with the band as he had never seen the Some Might Say artwork.

"Inside the house the previous owner had left a photograph of the cottage, the one you see in the artwork, in a frame inside the house," he says.

"That's when we realised it was the Oasis photograph."

The couple set about restoring the building and it opened as a holiday cottage in April 2009.

The restoration was so impressive that King Charles came to check it out in 2011, meaning the Gallagher brothers were no longer the most famous people to have visited the station.

"We won a conservation award for restoring it, and because Prince Charles - then as he was - is interested in conservation, he asked to come and look at it," Tim says.

Today, the west side of Cromford station is still in use by rail passengers, while the east side is for the use of holiday cottage guests.

So when Robyn got married in July and needed somewhere to get ready with her bridesmaids, where better than the station she remembered from her youth?

Bridesmaid Joey Hall had the idea of recreating the famous photo.

"She was collecting all the bits and bobs while we were having our hair and make-up done that morning," says Robyn.

"Our poor photographer, bless her, couldn't quite get the angle she wanted because she'd have had to stand on the train line."

Tim says they get a real mixture of visitors staying at the cottage - including lots of rail enthusiasts.

More Oasis fans have started staying in recent years, as more of them learn about the connection.

"People generally come along and recreate the scene. They often ask to borrow a wheelbarrow, which we're happy to lend them," says Tim.

Robyn - who travelled from Perth for her wedding - will be flying back to the UK again to see Oasis play next July as part of the band's recently-announced reunion tour.

"We didn't know Oasis were going to get back together when we did [the photos]," she says.

"I keep joking with everyone and saying we manifested it."

Meanwhile, Tim says enquiries for the cottage have "gone berserk" since the reunion was confirmed.

He has not been able to get tickets for any of the shows himself, but is willing to do a deal with the band.

"I should get Liam and Noel back and do a swap - cottage for the night for tickets," he says.

"They could come and stay and have a rock and roll party - that would be great."

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