Some railway paintings and their artists 4. Princess Royal Class 46207 Princess Arthur of Connaught [south of Stafford] - Barry Price

Barry Price’s, 1960’s, three quarter view of the Princess at the head of the Mid-Day Scot express, travelling northbound on the West Coast Main Line, shows the power and the grandeur of these Stanier Class 8P locomotives that were introduced in the 1920s and withdrawn from traffic in the early 1960s. It is an uncannily accurate representation of a class that I saw a lot of before their demise.

Barry Price is very well-regarded amongst the leading group of railway artists who have recorded the post-war British Railways steam scene. His work is sought after at auction and examples of his paintings regularly command four figure sums. Barry, born in 1939, is a former draughtsman who worked for a family retail firm, Beattie’s, which was based in his home town of Wolverhampton. He eventually took early retirement in order to paint full-time. When we visited him in 2016, he was spending “mornings only” upstairs at his suburban house in Tettenhall, mainly on a steady stream of commissions. In the past, he also established a reputation for himself by painting aeroplanes.

Some of his works, including one of a Lake Garda steamer and another of a King Class locomotive, as well as some examples of ceramic plates with railway designs, adorn the lounge at his home. His studio is filled with reference books, “so I get the right number of rivets and I get them in the right place.” His easel is mounted at just the right angle on his desk. Past works of art line the walls, including a very colourful American steam locomotive. There are cardboard carrying cases containing framed paintings that are available for sale, and around the room is all the paraphernalia and equipment necessary for a working artist. The painting in progress when we were shown around was of an A3 at speed, preliminarily lined out in just the way you would expect from a former draughtsman. His work always shows a keen eye for perspective.   

FS Groupies

It was not long before we caught up with the Flying Scotsman again. We were becoming FS groupies. Only a few months after her rescue from America, including the stop-over at Edge Hill sheds and a period of rehabilitation in Derby works, she was given a work-out on the Paignton to Kingswear line.

The two private railways in South Devon seem to have changed their names so much, I can never remember quite what to call them. Anyway, on the day that we visited Torbay during the first week in August 1973, FS was also seen double-heading out of Paignton with Manor Class No. 7827 Lydham Manor. I even took some nice, clear photographs for a change. 

Well east coast girls are hip

They may well have been, but the first time we ventured to the east coast we took our west coast girls with us. All travelling in Ian’s VW dormobile, we stayed at Rock Hall and Malton youth hostels. There were avocets at Budle Bay – our first ever sighting of these distinctive birds, at a time when they were less frequently seen in Britain than they are today. In the smallest pub that we had ever been in, it felt like we were just sharing someone else’s lounge with them. There was a ledge running along the length of wall behind the sofa, from which the beer was served.

We were drawn, naturally, to the North York Moors Railway, recording these two shots of Worsdell North Eastern Railway Class J27 0-6-0 No. 2392 [BR 65894] backing down onto stock over the level crossing at Grosmont and then, having left the station, pounding out of the tunnel and past the sheds, on 23^rd April 1973, which was a very wet day.

The first few bars of the Beach Boys’ California Girls still leave me with a tingle, every time that I hear them.

KGV

In late 1972 or early 1973, we made a visit to the Bulmer’s Railway Centre at Hereford, to see the NRM preserved King Class 4-6-0 locomotive No. 6000 King George V. I had seen her once previously - on 28/9/1962 - when I went with my dad to watch her rushing a northbound special through Gobowen. For a time, after 1968, she and Flying Scotsman were the only operational express steam engines with dispensation to run on British Rail.

We photographed her at the Bulmers’ sidings and at speed on the Welch Marches main line.

Some railway paintings and their artists 3. Somewhere in Yorkshire [A Stanier Class 8F 2-8-0 at a Yorkshire station] - David Halliwell

David’s portrait of the 8F freight locomotive in emulsion, gouache and oils shows the train being held up by a signal check as it prepares to shuffle through a Yorkshire mill town in the 1960’s. It is an evocative take on a common scene at the time. The air is thick with mist and pollution, as the leaden, grey/green background bears testimony. The 8F reluctantly comes to a halt at the colour light signal, no doubt with a squealing clatter from the buffers of the open coal wagon empties. Locals go about their business on the cobbled streets below, as others wait on the station platform for the next passenger train to call.

David Halliwell lives in the Bolton area and is an Associate Member of the Guild of Railway Artists. He has put some of his half-finished pieces - including some of the main stages in the development of this one - on the Guild of Railway Artists’ Facebook page, in order to show how a work of art progresses. He then invited comments from other visitors to the site.

David’s work is concentrated in the north west of England and records the industrial landscapes of that area in the days of steam on British Railways. He is a leading member of the Westhoughton Art Group and examples of his paintings were chosen to represent the Guild of Railway Artists at their 2015 Railart Exhibition at the National Railway Museum, which is where I first saw his work.  

The Flying Scotsman Affair

I’ve had a soft spot for her ever since we first met - in Liverpool Lime Street station on 26^th October 1968, when I was still a teenager. She had received special dispensation to break the BR steam ban within weeks of its inception. She looked every bit as impressive as I had imagined.

She’s had her ups and downs since then, of course. She left home to take America by storm in 1969 on a trip that was very successful early on but which eventually ended in tears. Then, with different suitors, she was rescued and repatriated, in February 1973.

I caught up with her again and welcomed her home at an otherwise deserted Edge Hill sheds, soon after she had come off the boat. Our meeting, on a cold, winter’s afternoon was lit by a low, watery sun. She was in a mess, but later on she made it to Derby for a makeover under her own steam. I looked forward to meeting her again once she was fully recovered.     

Barn Door

On the crest of this quiet, Cornish, country lane there is a bridge over the Western Region main line out of Penzance. It is one of many locations where, through the years, I have been responsible for losing the football. In this case, in August 1971, it sailed into impenetrable brambles half-way down the side of the railway embankment.

The lads who still tolerate my eager participation in 5-a-side on Thursday evenings have inevitably put my wayward shooting down to advancing age - and more particularly, knees without cartilage, slowing reactions, short, bandy legs, “ten to two” feet and poor eyesight. The truth is that I have always been good at getting into goal scoring positions but crap at actually shooting accurately. Consequently, in the second picture, taken in a car park in Scotland in April 1972 [we had a lot of impromptu kick arounds in car parks], the photographer was never in danger of receiving the ball full in the face, though any number of parked cars were obviously vulnerable.

Classic Traction Action

In the old days - well before young people began dancing with bottles of beer in their hands and older folk started walking through water at the baths instead of swimming through it – Chris went off to Keele University. The following year we got married and she got a transfer to Liverpool University.

Though she travelled home most weekends, I sometimes visited her at Keele during late 1971 and early 1972. I travelled by train to Crewe and on to Keele by bus. I remember that the bed in her halls bedroom was challengingly narrow, and that the Electric Light Orchestra provided the musical accompaniment to all halls activities – throughout the day and all along the corridor. On this occasion, in October 1971, I also took some monochrome photographs of the [now] classic traction action on Crewe station.

Some railway paintings and their artists 2. Coronation Class Pacific 46252 City of Leicester in Crewe Works – Frank Johnson

This painting provides a convincing impression of the inside of the locomotive works in the 1960’s. It shows how labour intensive the maintenance of such engines was. The works were noisy, bustling, dirty and dangerous places. We had the pleasure of visiting them a number of times, with permits that senior pupils had arranged in advance for us, on organised trips with Wallasey Grammar School Railway Society.

Born in Leicester, Frank Johnson, 1917-1998, was a commercial and portrait artist who taught at Bradford Regional College of Art from 1952 up to his retirement in 1980. David Hockney was one of his students. Celebrating 175 years of its existence, Bradford College’s online website describes Frank Johnson’s portraits as tender, compassionate and sensitive. He specialised in pictures of people in their working environment, as shown on the BBC’s “Your Paintings” website that show-cased 17 such examples of his work.

During his lifetime, Frank exhibited his work at the Royal Academy, Bradford City Art Gallery, the Huddersfield Sports Centre Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art at Skopje, in the then Yugoslavia. Today, his paintings are in public collections at galleries in Bradford, Leeds and Glasgow. His work is said to have been influenced by Walter Sickert and the Euston Road School [1937-9], emphasising naturalism and realism. This style has also been described as being part of the “Kitchen Sink” art movement. 

Browsing through the GW Railwayana Auction catalogue prior to their 25 July 2015 sale, my attention was drawn to a group of six original paintings by Frank Johnson which were to be offered in successive lots. This was not then a name that I knew and I presumed that it was likely, therefore, that Frank was not known primarily as a railway artist, but someone who had dipped into the railway arena for a relatively short period and probably for a specific purpose.

I like these paintings. The larger than life facial features, the washed out, creased, blue overalls, the grease top and other flat hats and the general bustle, all remind me of the sheer number of employees that there were in those places. Crewe Works was teeming with men when our crocodile of fresh-faced youngsters in school uniform threaded its way through the various shops, as we frantically wrote down numbers as though our lives depended on it, at the same time trying to avoid falling into the pits between the rails or snagging our shorts, or worse, on protruding pieces of metal.  

There is certainly attention to detail in these pictures and the locomotives themselves are fairly convincingly replicated by someone who probably did not necessarily see himself as a “train man” in the same way that we perhaps like to think that we are, as lifelong devotees. Having said that, my own photograph of A2 Class No.60537 Batchelor’s Button on Carlisle Canal shed taken in August 1962, shows the smokebox door number plate as being below the handrail, not above it, as it is recorded in Frank’s painting of that locomotive. The mistaken labelling of Britannia Class No. 70022 Tornado as Venus [which was 70023] might be an indication that the artist was operating a bit outside of his comfort zone when it came to railways.

These six paintings were sold at a fine art auction in May 2013 and as one combined lot, for £600 [£750, including buyer’s premium]. According to an article in the Nottingham Evening News, dated 13 June 2013, the group had been secured by a provincial art gallery, the Fletchergate Art Gallery in the city. Information available on the internet indicated that at least three of them - and presumably therefore all six - had price tags there of £1,500 each during their time on sale at that location. Prior to the GWRA sale at Pershore, the gallery’s own website showed the images as having been sold but did not reveal for how much.

On Bradford College’s alumni website, one of Frank Johnson’s former pupils described him as “very inspirational” and the “biggest influence” on them all. They liked the fact that he was not just a teacher but a practising artist who was prepared to work on his own paintings in front of them. The implication was that some other art teachers had already “hung up their brushes” by that stage. 

In a brief exchange with a representative of the Fletchergate gallery, where Frank Johnson’s work had previously been exhibited, I was told that GWRA had received a lot of interest in the forthcoming sale of this tranche of paintings.

In fact, on the day, three of them went for £200, one for £250 and two failed to sell. What a damp squib they had turned out to be. I suddenly felt a bit sorry for Frank Johnson, or rather, I felt relieved that he is not around to have to face the ignominy of such widespread rejection - in this niche market, at least. There was very little interest from the railwayana fraternity in his work. On the day after the auction, the two unsold paintings were still available for purchase from GWRA at a reserve price of £300.

Banned

- from Eric Hanlon’s wedding do in New Brighton [c.1973] for not wearing a tie.

- from the Caravan and Camping Club [1990] for complaining that being next to the sewage farm was not an acceptable pitch for 2 families with 6 young children.

- photographs of trains that include Chris, on a railway-related, closed Facebook group site [June 2017], issued in the form of a polite request to desist, following “inappropriate comments” from some members. I have given an assurance of my intention to comply.

Such a trouble maker.

SNCF DMU at Chartres, 12/8/71.

Cornwall 1971

On our trip to Cornwall by train in July 1971, we stayed in a mixture of youth hostels and B&Bs and travelled over the St Ives, Falmouth and Looe branch lines. The only 2 railway photographs I took both have Chris in them. Another way of looking at it is that these two pictures of Chris also have trains in them. In any event, it seems to have become a recurrent theme thereafter. That mini-dress got around a bit, too.

Chris, Peak Class No. D32 and a Western diesel [in that order] at Plymouth North Road station on 13/7/71

Brush Type 4 No. 1698 at Liskeard on 15/7/71.

Some railway paintings and their artists 1. Somewhere in Yorkshire - Joe Townend

This oil painting shows WD 2-8-0 No. 90417 on a typical freight duty in the north of England during the 1960’s. It has a rugged, mill town setting and the locomotive is characteristically unkempt and the worse for wear, as they often were during the last years of steam.

Joe Townend was born in Huddersfield in 1946 and he still lives in Yorkshire. A former painter of pub signs for 25 years, he is now a full time railway artist. He has become one of the most prolific producers of railway paintings and over the last few years he has had far more sales at some of the main railwayana auctions than any of his contemporaries. He has regularly sold new paintings, unframed and still in their stretchers, at GWRA, railwayana.net, Talisman and Solent auctions. He has been an Associate Member of the Guild of Railway Artists since 2011.

Most of his work is of British Railways steam locomotives at work in the 1950’s and 1960’s. He concentrates on straightforward, three-quarter views. He has a good eye for the dimensions of the various locomotive classes but he appears to give less emphasis to the setting and background of his paintings - including railway personnel and bystanders - than some of the other leading railway artists.

Wirral Wedding Weekend

Never needing much encouragement to do so, we stopped off, en route, at Chester. It was a rather wet race day. Colourful, if somewhat under-dressed, hen party revellers spilt their Pimms, as gusts of wind blew their brollies inside out. The famous course nestles in a meander of the River Dee and can be viewed quite adequately for free from an adjacent raised roadside position.

The backdrop is provided by the Roodee viaduct, built to carry the parallel lines of both the former Chester and Holyhead Railway [opened in 1850] and the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway [opened in 1846] over the river. The four-track main line from Chester General station to Saltney Junction continued through LMS and GWR ownership [respectively] into BR days, before being rationalised to a two-track set-up in 1979. Singling of the line south as far as Wrexham followed, a step which has been reversed as part of an up-grading programme within the last 2 years.

The rain stopped in time for the wedding and the evening celebrations also went wonderfully well.

There was no red fruit or anything resembling an appetising croissant in sight at breakfast. While we deliberated over alternatives, we were joined by one of the hen do parties. Not eaves-dropping was not an option. There was no diversionary background music. In no time at all, we learnt that Asians now run their local shop, that If you work in Boots you can’t wear nail varnish, and that you can change your own DNA with diet and lifestyle choices. This latest revelation brought a regretful outburst from the girl with the most tattoos, that if she’d known that she “wouldn’t have had to have 9 operations.”

We escaped to Burton Marshes PSPB reserve overlooking the Dee estuary. It’s a great setting with a new purpose-built centre and weatherproof board walks provided between the main hides. The birds put on a fine show just beyond the centre’s panoramic windows. Three varieties of egrets are perhaps the most notable current attractions.

Meanwhile, the Bidston to Wrexham diesel units occasionally rattled past between the reserve and the saltmarsh, on the double track that used to serve the Shotton steel works with the iron ore trains from Bidston dock.

Fully Booked

When I went to America for the first time I took with me Bill Bryson’s book, “Made in America.” How clever of me, to choose something so suitable to read on my holiday, I thought, in a rather self-congratulatory way. I did not even get around to reading the first page. America was far too interesting to find the time to read books. I read it on my return, instead.

When in a library, as in a book shop, I gravitate towards railway books and humour. I will also skim read the newspaper and magazine headlines and dip into their lead articles. I read quickly and for overall meaning rather than descriptive detail.

With books, however, I also increasingly take note of other people’s mistakes. Since self-publishing my own articles and books, I know how easy it is for errors to make it through the various levels of scrutiny to the printed page. I find it reassuring when others mess up, too.

As a teenager, I made a special friend of the librarian at our local library. I was an avid user of that service. Yet, my Ian Allan abc books and the railway timetables were picked up more frequently than anything else. I loved those substantial BR timetable volumes, all printed in their regional colours, and I replaced winter editions with the summer versions as soon as they became available. I had to have examples of both the maroon London Midland Region and the Great Western Region in its rich chocolate brown cover. This was because we lived on the cusp, surrounded by the LMR, but also, through the presence of Birkenhead Woodside, at the northern extremity of the WR system.    

I pored over the new timetables. I imagined journeys that I knew I would never make and some more realistic ones closer to home that I certainly would. I read through the lists of station names from unfamiliar parts of the country and marvelled at the magic that they hinted at - places like Brymbo, Strata Florida and Vulcan Halt.

When I last walked down the aisles of one of those large out of town electrical goods retailers, I left behind the familiar fridges, kettles, cameras and tellies and soon found myself in a different world. I did not recognise the expensive gadgetry on show, nor did I understand what the labels said about them. It looked, on the face of it, like it was in English, but none of it made sense and there were new words there that I had never seen before. I stared at the contents through the Perspex packaging, but it was not clear to me where it plugged in, what it would be attached to, or what its function was.

“Would you like any help, sir?” came the enquiry. “No, leave me alone,” might have been my stifled reply, though I made do with a polite smile, accompanied by a shake of the head. I had no intention at all of exhibiting my abject ignorance to a schoolboy doing a Saturday job. I turned around and walked towards the door until I was back with the hair dryers and toasters. Then I knew that I was relatively safe from any further potential embarrassment.

The last time we were in Liverpool, we visited the newly refurbished Central Library, one of a line of three imposing Victorian public buildings in the William Brown Street Conservation Area, sitting opposite the equally magnificent St George’s Hall, just below Lime Street station. They have made a fine job of it, keeping all the best bits, like the circular Picton reading room, whilst opening out the central space inside the main entrance with a series of mezzanine levels joined by prominent stairways, all culminating in a dramatic glass dome and with roof access providing views over the city.

I gravitated towards the local history section, where I found a multitude of books about Merseyside that I did not know existed, many of them self-published efforts, like my own. I find it refreshing that stock buyers take a punt on self-published books. Some library services won’t go near them with a barge-pole, fearing schoolboy errors and amateurish presentation. They have a point. Authors of books aimed at niche markets can’t necessarily afford the services of professional publishers, proof readers or literary agents. Unless they have been extremely careful, therefore, they lay themselves open to inevitable criticism. It is the easiest thing in the world to overlook a basic error, how ever many times you read the proof. Although I’m tempted to trawl through such books for their cock-ups, I’m actually very pleased they are there. They give voice to those who would otherwise remain unheard, yet the stories and observations that they contain are brimming with experience, insight, closely observed familiarity and an abundant affection for their city. They are rough diamonds granted the opportunity to rub shoulders with literary masters. Their inclusion in such a prestigious location takes foresight from the decision makers. It does not surprise me that in Liverpool they are given full rein.   

Like most old spotters, I have my own library of railway books. It only amounts to a couple of shelves and every now and then I have a bit of a cull there, too. It is amazing how selective I have become, as there are obviously so many different options to choose from.

The ones that I have chosen for myself are histories of the two parts of the country I have lived in, plus a few other favourite places I have visited. Added to those are the railwayana section and the albums of photographs and paintings of steam locomotives. Apart from my old notebooks and abc pocket books, that is about it.

I have a few reliable stand-bys that I return to time and time again. They include, Rails Along the Sea Wall, by Peter Kay, my summer 1962 combined volume, Paddington to the Mersey, by Dr R. Preston Hendry and R. Powell Hendry and Summer Saturdays in the West, by Simon St John Thomas and Simon Rocksborough Smith. They are my escapist books, the ones that I rely on, periodically, to whisk me away to another place and another time. They provide reminiscences and reflective moments - a Tardis for my more wistful days.

[Adapted from an article in the current edition of the Railway Antiques Gazette, with thanks to the editor, Tim Petchey.] 

St Erth to St Ives

The branch line to St Ives was the last stretch of line to be built to the GWR’s 7 foot, broad gauge. It opened in 1877 and then, after a short time as a dual system, it was standard gauge only from 1892. It is well known as one of the most scenic of Britain’s railways, in spite of its only being four and a quarter miles long.

Soon after leaving St Erth, it is close enough to the side of the Hayle estuary to be able to identify some of the wading birds feeding on the mud banks at low tide. Climbing to overlook the sea from a higher vantage point, the line effectively perches on a ledge cut into the hillside above Carbis Bay, a position it keeps for the approach to St Ives, itself. How inviting the beach at Portminster looks from the carriage window, with its bright yellow sand and ocean blue.

Because there were no youth hostels in St Ives, we did not actually stay there until July 1971, when we travelled down by train. We took our own children there in the early 80s, returning again last year with our first two grandchildren. It’s still a wonderful holiday resort. The fact that it retains its rail links just adds to the overall enjoyment – for some of us, anyway.

PVC

Unless I’m much mistaken. It’s picnic time between trains at Tan-y-Bwlch station on the Ffestiniog Railway, probably in late 1971. The film was processed in February 1972. The footbridge giving access to the island platform had only recently been added to the scene.

Bidston or Bust

When the annex to St George’s Secondary Modern School was built in 1961, it was the first building in the world to be heated entirely by solar energy. At around the same time, those boys from Wallasey Grammar School for whom playing rugby was not a massive attraction, found themselves running up Bidston Hill each week, from a changing hut that was just a little further down a track next to the revolutionary new school building.

After one such foray, we noticed a camera crew and the distinctive, Scottish TV reporter, Fyfe Robertson, who had come to record the significance of this technological advance for the BBC’s “Tonight” programme. Back home, I stuck the scrap of paper with his signature on it into my autograph book, where Fyfe still keeps company with Ernest Marples, Colin Cowdrey and Twinkle, to name but three.

That route to Bidston was still quite rural, looking back - and a little boggy, in parts. It was a true cross-country course. When this photo was taken in 1972, the footpath alongside the railway and past Seacombe Junction signalbox to Bidston was not very inviting either - waterlogged, rubbish-strewn and with the concrete fence posts askew and many of the wires missing or contorted.

From a distance, I have a feeling that Bidston is a bit more easily accessible from Wallasey these days, both by foot and by bike. My friends in the Wirral Cycling Group will no doubt put me straight on that one.