Elvis Priestley

One of my Christmas presents was a CD - Elvis Presley with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I know that in this age of iTunes and downloads my use of the term “CD” dates me, somewhat, but until the system goes the same way as Betamax videos I’ll probably stick with it.

Elvis had an unforeseen effect on me from a distance, in addition to the music - which I would have to admit to coming to well after he had departed - and even then, only with the addition of posthumously arranged, full orchestral backing to improve a handful of his more appealing tracks.

Presley and Priestley are not dissimilar names. You may think that unlikely, but I promise that all through my adult life, when I’ve been in the position of telling strangers my name so that they can make a note of it, time and time again they have pronounced it back to me to check they are spelling it right, as Presley.

Even when they say it right, they spell it out wrongly, “So that’s Priestley? P..R..E..S..?”

“No, PRIESTLEY - with a T,” I insist, and so it goes on.  

At school, Elvis became just one of a number of nicknames that I had to put up with. Teachers are always vulnerable to this. If it’s only a slight alteration to your name, then you have actually got away lightly. It’s much more likely to be something derogatory about your appearance.

Nicknames for local services provided by the railways were more often to do with familiarity and affection. In these parts alone, there was the Southwell Paddy [Southwell to Rolleston Junction], the Penny Emma [Sutton in Ashfield Junction to the Town station - now immortalised in the naming of a road the Penny Emma Way] and the Annesley Dido [the workers train to Annesley from Bulwell Common]. Older residents still talk affectionately of these lost lines and their passenger services. The trains were personalised because they had become ingrained and reassuring features in the communities that they connected.

I didn’t get here in time to photograph any of them, unfortunately. I did get to travel on one or two steam-hauled branch lines in the 1960s, however, including the Gobowen to Oswestry section of the old Cambrian Railway. It would not surprise me if the locals had their own name for that one, too.  

0-4-2T 1400 Class No. 1458 stands in the bay platform at Gobowen on 28/9/62 with the branch line push-and-pull train to Oswestry. I had previously travelled this route with the school railway society on a visit to Oswestry works. On this occasion, I had gone there with my dad to watch King Class No. 6000 King George V on a special train to Chester. The Kings did not normally go any further than Shrewsbury on the ex-GWR route to Birkenhead.