“I’m in St Ives”

OK, so I was in St Ives when I wrote that but I finished it at home. “So what?” you may well ask. I was back in St Ives again, having recently read an article in the Guardian about the town by Tanya Gold (10/8/24). She had conducted a series of interviews with local inhabitants, including a former resident who had fallen on hard times and now lives in a van, the local food bank organiser, a fisherman in a shrinking business and a local artist who was campaigning against second home ownership. The message was the same. Tourism is bad for St Ives. 

St Ives faces the same problems as other peripheral coastal resorts – poor accessibility, seasonal employment patterns and a consequent high unemployment rate in winter, exorbitant house prices, local people being priced out of the housing market altogether, and that ghost town atmosphere out of the holiday season, where shops, cafes, second homes and holiday lets are often just empty shells.

So, why pick on St Ives, particularly? The gist of the article was that St Ives is a worst-case scenario. This could well be true. For all sorts of reasons, St Ives is possibly the most beautiful of all British seaside resorts. That’s why we go there and have been doing so since 1969. St Ives was already under a bit of pressure then. We parked up the hill, somewhere close to where the leisure centre is now and walked down into the old town centre. When we took our young family there in 1986, we had to make do with two basement rooms in a Victorian terrace that stank of damp and mould. I felt sick that I’d committed us all to this for a whole week, but it was before the internet and the accountability that has accompanied modern online accommodation provision. In short, they would not be able to get away with that today because it would be denounced as totally unsuitable in a very public way.

Should I feel guilty taking an expensive holiday let here in St Ives? I’m in favour of national and local government intervention to curb all sorts of excesses that are caused by capitalism and which magnify inequality when left to their own devices. Should I stay at home and never visit anywhere on the grounds that unessential journeys are harming the planet? I would find that difficult as there’s a wonderful world out there just waiting to be discovered. We were finding out that for ourselves in the 1960s when we first happened upon St Ives. Should I go by train? I’d like to but its considerably more expensive than coming by car and I know where the side streets are where I can still park for nothing.    

Perhaps I should feel apologetic about keeping on coming back, but I just can’t help myself. Maybe it’s just my acutely developed love of place. I hope that St Ives can continue to squeeze me in from time to time. I should probably try it out of the Easter to October half-term season so that I can better understand the problems it faces. I bet it's still beautiful, though.

   

A pit-stop at Okehampton

 

If you want a station that represents best practice in refurbishment and renewal then Okehampton must be right up there. Instead of shooting past the town when heading west on the improved A30, take time out, instead, to visit this ancient market town and its splendid railway station at the top of the hill. An hour’s free parking in the station yard gives ample time to take a snack in the well-stocked café, which has an imaginative and tempting menu with a number of hot food and vegetarian options. Even if its only for a toilet stop, you’ll find a moments peace surrounded by original tiling, plumbing and woodwork that offers quite a contrast with hectic motorway services.  

Today the award-winning station, which is immaculately turned out in Southern Region green and cream, is enthusiastically supported by a number of local community groups, including Okerail and the Dartmoor Railway Association. There is a museum, a book shop and the old goods shed opposite is a youth hostel. The only current blemish is the footbridge over to platforms one and two. It had its roof whipped off in gales early in 2024 and is now closed off and awaiting attention.  

That the station is now such an attraction is largely due to the reinstatement of passenger services to Exeter. First opened in 1871, passenger trains lasted until closure by British Rail in 1972. Part of the former London and South Western Railway main line from Exeter to Plymouth that skirted round the top end of Dartmoor then survived to take out stone traffic from BR’s Meldon quarry immediately to the west of Okehampton, but this link closed in 2011. A groundswell of opinion in favour of reopening the previously freight only section between the link with the existing Barnstaple to Exeter line and Okehampton was supported by Devon County Council. Occasional heritage services then operated between 1997 and 2019.

National Rail took over in 2021 to provide a regular passenger service once again on what had become known as the Dartmoor Line. Two-car GWR Class 150 DMUs now operate an hourly service to the city and are clearly being well used both by local people, fell walkers and other tourists. Sustrans National cycle route 27 passes the station and a dedicated bus service connects the station to the town centre and to Tavistock. There is now considerable interest in the possibility of re-establishing the railway link with Bere Alston to re-instate an alternative route to Plymouth. During 2024, plans were already underway to construct a new station to the east of the town to be known as Okehampton Parkway and serving A30 users and local commuters living in the surrounding rural areas more directly.

       

Back at the SVR

I shot round the M6 toll road on Saturday morning, full of anticipation for our latest lads’ day out on the trains. We met up at Bridgnorth station for another go on the wonderful SVR. Such a lovely valley to wend one’s way down in a heritage DMU, after the first cup of tea of the day. It’s now 64 years since we got our act together, coalescing around a shared neighbourhood, park football and the school railway society. Our twice-yearly reunions include a statutory railway backdrop - a familiar, scenic environment in which to update, to reminisce and to plan for more. Mostly, though, it is to reinforce friendships that have stood the test of time and that still offer continuity and reassurance in a continually changing and increasingly challenging world. And we were doing so well until VAR denied Beto his equalizer, and with that a precious away point for Everton vapourised, too. From ecstasy to dejection in a matter of seconds. Which just goes to show that although you can’t have everything you wish for, it’s just as important not to lose sight of the things that really matter. EFC will bounce back again. They always have, I muttered to myself, as I succumbed to a longer ride home than I’d expected, as I tried to extricate myself from the vortex that is inner Wolverhampton and then queued with the rest of the traffic on the southbound M6. Just like the marginal offside, motorway congestion is a small price to pay when compared to the camaraderie of true friendship.

        

Change here for Loo

The toilets on Platform 1 at London Paddington have been decorated with large scale photographic images of railway scenes past and present. Though taking photos in a public loo is fraught with potential hazards, Chris braved the ladies to capture the Flying Scotsman across 3 cubicle doors, even though the image had inexplicably become reversed during the mounting process. Meanwhile, next door in the gents, a GWR Hitachi Intercity Express Train bi-modal unit is hopefully the only thing being splashed across the wall above the urinals. [mikepriestleysrailwayheritagebogspot.com] 

Port Sunlight

I couldn’t really account for the fact that I’d never had a good look round Port Sunlight before now, but there you are, we were here at last. It is, of course, renowned in some quarters as the model garden village constructed for the factory workers in his soap manufacturing business by William Hesketh Lever and begun in 1888. At the heart of the estate today is the classically-styled Lady Lever Art Gallery with its collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings. The museum opposite tells the story of the settlement, though this was unfortunately closed on the day that we visited. The Lever Brothers building, itself, has an impressive stone façade from 1895, and nearby is the Gladstone Theatre of 1891, opened by Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, firstly as a dining hall.

Of interest, too, is the station, which has a cottage-style exterior in keeping with its surroundings. The station is on the ex-LNWR/GWR Joint line from Birkenhead, a route we travelled along on trainspotting forays to Chester, Crewe and Shrewsbury. We must have sped through Port Sunlight on the Paddington expresses many a time, without giving it so much as a second glance. This section is now part of the electrified Merseyrail network that connects Chester to the Wirral and Liverpool. It is operated by four-car Class 777 third rail EMUs.  

Peak Rail Heritage Open Day

A tour round the sheds at 17C Rowsley was a first or me, never having reached here in the days of steam. The opportunity for a “behind the scenes” guided walk was provided as part of the nationwide September 2024 heritage days, whereby such sites open their doors to visitors at no cost. As the website puts it, “Heritage Open Days is England's largest community led festival of history and culture, involving thousands of local volunteers and organisations. Every year in September it brings people together to celebrate their heritage, community and history. Stories are told, traditions explored, and histories brought to life. It’s your chance to see hidden places and try out new experiences – and it’s all FREE.” On duty at Rowsley South was the former Kent Electricity Board’s 0-4-0 saddle tank No. 2, Bagnall No. 2842, from the Chasewater Railway, at the head of the 4-coach train to Matlock. The sheds and yard contained a mix of steam and diesel locos in various stages of repair, in addition to the current operational fleet .

   

Totnes Riverside to Buckfastleigh

We took a trip up the valley on the South Devon Railway behind the ex-GWR 0-6-0 panier tank No. 6412. The journey is through a tranquil sylvan landscape with shafts of sunlight intermittently piercing the canopy of trees on the river bank. The peace is only broken by the steady beat and exhaust from the locomotive as it pulls its string of Mark 1 coaches up the slope at a suitably sedate pace. This is attractive rural England at its best. The branch line is so typical of its type, serving occasional country towns and connecting them to the nearest main line. When we first came here, trains ran in to the main line station, but the potential bottleneck on the up track at the rail bridge over the Dart immediately to the east meant Riverside became the necessary start point for the heritage line, so that workings did not encroach on main line operations. That’s fine, as it’s only a short walk between the two, and the replacement terminus is itself a delightfully re-constructed period piece. Near Staverton, we passed 4500 Class 2-6-2 tank No. 5526 on a freight working that included brake van experience opportunities.