Wot? No trains?

We were staying near Kingsbridge, in south Devon. No trains here, and no trace either of the terminus station of the former GWR branch from Brent [on the London to Penzance main line], which closed in 1963 but was not demolished until 2009. The site is now part of an industrial estate.

Moving on to Dartmouth, we found a station, but still no trains. Although Dartmouth was never rail-connected [it was a bridge too far], tickets can still be bought in the station building - now primarily functioning as a restaurant - for travel on the privately-owned Paignton to Kingswear section, at the end of the line and on the other side of the River Dart. 

In the 1930s, Rupert D’Oyly Carte brought his friends, including Malcolm Sargent, for weekends at his country house at Coleton Fishacre. They travelled down on the Friday evening train from Paddington. The house, now owned by the National Trust, is a short drive from Kingswear station.

The cutting-edge, art deco furnishings and fittings inside this Arts and Crafts style building, together with its landscaped gardens rolling down the steep slopes to the sea, must have left an extraordinary impression on his visitors – as it still does today.

It must have set them up well for the working week back in the capital, as their Castle Class-hauled express whisked them back to the Savoy [the hotel and the theatre were both owned by D’Oyly Carte] and the Royal Albert Hall [where Sargent regularly conducted with the Royal Choral Society, throughout the decade].    

A few handshakes away

In 1974, we went to a family wedding in Berkshire. In 2015, we went back to Berkshire for another one, this time to celebrate with a daughter of the first marriage. On both occasions, and as is my want, I sneaked off prior to the event to the nearest railway location. On Friday 19/4/74, that happened to be Newbury station.

These two events separated by a generation reminded me how quickly lives are lived and how enriching it is to have a sense of continuity through family links as well as some historical perspective. This notion of personal links to the past was recently reinforced by a passage in Steven Fry’s auto-biography, “The Fry Chronicles,” in which he describes a meeting with Alistair Cooke. Shaking hands at the end of the evening, Cooke said, “This hand you are shaking once shook the hand of Bertrand Russell….Russell knew Robert Browning….[His] aunt danced with Napoleon. That’s how close we all are to history. Just a few handshakes away.”

I’ve even had my own “close to history” moments. Undertaking family history research, I exchanged emails with the mayor of Pitcairn Island, who, it transpired, was called Shawn Christian. Pitcairn still has a tiny population, so, surely, he was a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian? I admit to not putting him on the spot over it, but it got me quite excited at the time.

I also spoke on the phone to a German gentleman, then in his nineties, who drove Rommel around in the desert during the North Africa campaign of the Second World War. “He chose me because I could find my way back,” he told me and he went on, “I knew Rommel very well.” Rommel knew Hitler very well - so, for me, only one virtual and two real handshakes away.

      

Steady Hands at Pershore, 15/7/17.

What is it with me and disposable take-away coffee cups with plastic lids? Recently and for the first time in my life, I tried to drink out of one with the lid on and I dripped coffee on my T-shirt. Is there a problem with my basic hand to mouth motor skills or my hand-eye co-ordination? I put it down to carelessness. I vowed that I would be more careful next time and see to it that the lid was firmly in place.

The next time was soon upon me. Avidly following the action on the screen from my seat at Saturday’s Pershore auction, I suddenly realised that, simultaneously, I was systematically pouring coffee all down my front. It had been a clean T-shirt; I’d only had it on for about 4 hours. Is it just me, or are those lids not fit for purpose? If you are not supposed to drink from them why have they got a protruding, lip-sized opening that is clearly there to encourage you to drink the thing with the lid on? Coffee stains, so I was destined to look like a coffee-incontinent wally for the rest of the day. It was a warm and humid day and the only alternative to stripping off was to retrieve my jumper from the car to cover up my incompetence and sit there over-heating for the rest of the proceedings.

GWRA continues to come up with some fine railway art and that’s in addition to the wide array of posters, which were now being catalogued in their own discrete section, as were advertising enamels and the road and motoring signs. Cuneo, Root, Breckon, Welch, Price and Nixon were all represented, with a Barry Price special again breaking though the 1K mark. The one that caught my eye this time, however, was by Murray Secretan. I’d heard the name and associated him with poster art work, most notably the GWR quad-royal 100 Years of Progress 1835-1935, showing a King between Dawlish and Teignmouth, but I knew little else about him. Beverley Cole and Richard Durack wrote a short section about him in their book, Railway Posters 1923-1947. He worked for the LMS Advertising Department, as well as for the Locomotive Publishing Company and the GWR.

Lot 118 at Pershore on Saturday was an original water colour painting on board of Royal Scot Class No. 6161 King’s Own [http://www.gwra.co.uk/2017julcat.php]. Though I never saw any of the Royal Sots in an un-rebuilt condition, I found the attention to detail in this representation immaculate. Like Vic Welch, Secretan was painting as flattering a portrait of the locomotive as he could. Background and setting were of no consequence, the traditional three-quarter front view was standard, not a hint of steam, smoke or any movement or activity, no weather issues, no personnel evident to take the eye away from the locomotive at centre stage. Much of Welch’s works, in particular, it seems to me, are like over-bright, coloured-in, engineering drawings. They endeavour to show off the engine at its best, rather than reflect any element of a working setting. Lot 118 quickly shot away from my personal hobby fund allowance for the day and sold for 800 GBP plus buyer’s premium, etc.

Making sure that my T-shirt problem had not seeped through to my jumper and covering my chest with my catalogue, just in case, I happened upon the successful bidder on his way to the door and congratulated him on his purchase. He was gracious in return, and we agreed on the importance of valuing the contribution made to recording the age of the steam railway for future generations by those who were there at the time and who possessed the necessary artistic ability, including extraordinary dexterity and precision, as well as a draughtsmen’s eye for detail and perspective, in order to show-case, as in this example by Secretan, the magnificence of a brand-new locomotive for the LMS, that was built in Derby in 1930.  I took off my jumper and opened the car window for the journey home, thinking about another one that had got away. At least, there were now no further witnesses to my sloppy coffee drinking habit. No more leaky plastic lids for me and, as they say, it will all come out in the wash.

    

Should I really be going to Doncaster?

As I look back at them now, I would admit to an underlying sadness about some of those day trips I took by myself during my half term holidays in the early 1970s. My mates had lost interest in spending time on the national network since the end of steam and so I was on my own. It concerned me that I perhaps should also have given up what might have been widely regarded as a kids’ hobby. I was full of self-doubt.

I had to keep justifying my continued interest to myself, yet it continued to provide me with an occasional welcome escape from the demands of my work situation, as I tried to establish myself as a young teacher in a tough secondary school. It was escapism, but I still needed it. Railways have always provided me with a safe place to go, to step out of the day to day, to unwind and relax in an environment in which I feel at home.

When I returned to Doncaster on Friday 15^th February 1974, I had not been there since the end of steam. Taking the train from Liverpool, via Manchester and Sheffield - though not by the Woodhead route this time, which was by then freight only - I appear to have taken only two pictures all day, an EE Type 3 in Sheffield and St Paddy in Doncaster. Perhaps I was too busy soul-searching.

“We’ve got a boy at Derby who can play a bit.”

We over-used a number of Brian Clough quotes in the 1970s, along with various bits from Python, Fawlty Towers, the BBC’s David Coleman etc. I think he had been referring to Colin Todd, the England defender.

On 26/10/73, eleven days after Brian Clough had resigned as Derby County manager, I went there on a day trip by train, changing at Crewe. I took photos on the station of Nos. 64, 1105, 5901 and 25244 and then went back home.

When I met him briefly at the City Ground, Nottingham, towards the end of his time there, Brian Clough was his own inimitable self. We had been introduced to the Forest captain, Brian Laws, before a match to which we had been invited as a thank you for our school’s involvement in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme. Brian marched over, put his arm round Laws and said to us, “You don’t want to listen to a word this young man says.” “Young man!” – I can hear him now. He would have just had to include that phrase, wouldn’t he?

I chuckle about it every time that I pass his statue in Nottingham city centre. What a character – and what an astonishing achievement at two neighbouring, provincial clubs, now connected by Brian Clough Way.

Meandering with Miguel

We had two extra holidays in the summer of 1973, courtesy of a visitor from Spain who was a friend of a friend. The deal was that we would show him the sights in Cornwall and Scotland and he would give us a lift round the more picturesque hot spots in his car. We spoke no Spanish and Miguel knew very little English, so it was a relatively quiet journey for much of the time. In fact, neither of us can remember much about it at all.

Whenever we went near a railway, I asked if he could stop the car while I took a photo or two, and these are the few pictures I collected on our way around. We were in the SW of England during late July and into early August and Scotland later on that month. The images are from Penzance, Totnes, Torquay, Axminster, Winchester, Fort William and the Kyle of Lochalsh.  

Absolutely Nothing

This is the title of a current exhibition by the Italian artist, Lara Favaretto, at the Nottingham Contemporary.

In her work, “Thinking Head” [2017], clouds of steam slowly rise from the gallery roof. The accompanying blurb insists that this vapour is totally uncontrolled by the artist, that it will move in shifting patterns and that “the intensity of the steam clouds above will correspond to the intensity of the thinking happening inside.”

The Contemporary is located on High Pavement and next to Weekday Cross, an iconic former railway junction, where the Great Central Railway emerged from the south portal of the tunnel beneath the city centre, before crossing the Midland station and heading towards the bridge over the river.

I would hazard a guess that Weekday Cross has not seen so much steam as this for over half a century. The Contemporary, though, will no doubt continue to dispense plenty of hot air long after this particular exhibition has moved on.

Mining Country

In the early 1980s, thousands were still employed in coal distribution by rail, as well as in all the other auxiliary industries that depended on it. Many of the lines in the East Midlands owed their existence to coal traffic, including the nearest to home, the Mansfield to Southwell link, which was opened by the Midland Railway in 1871.

When we lived in Mansfield in the mid-1980s, we were within sight of the ex-Midland line to Nottingham and close to the triangle of lines south west of the Town station, which was then an impressive old building that had been left in an unimpressive state of abandonment and disrepair, after local passenger trains had ceased running in 1964. It has since been refurbished and the passenger service re-instated.

Mansfield had 3 working pits within its town boundaries, including one at Pleasley [1877-1983], which was just off this map to the north west of the town centre. The shopping area had a prosperous bustle to it. During the time that I worked in the town, all the collieries shown on the map were closed down, most of the services on the railway lines that connected them were discontinued and the tracks removed.

Class 56 No. 56114 climbs away from Mansfield towards Sutton in Ashfield with empty coal wagons, in 1986. It is passing the former Mansfield sheds, occupied by other industrial concerns by that time. The double-header Class 20s and the Class 37s working this section were displaced by Class 56s on the colliery to power station traffic during our time there. Locomotives were stabled at Shirebrook depot, further north on the line to Worksop.

The lines from the triangular junction south of Mansfield strode across the valley containing the River Maun and Quarry Lane on viaducts, and served the more recently sunk collieries to the east of the town. The northern arc of the triangle had provided the link to Southwell for passenger trains from Mansfield. Nottinghamshire coal could then get out more easily to the east and south. Regular passenger services ran between the two towns only until 1929, when they lost out to a replacement bus service.

Further east from Mansfield, the map shows the last part of the Central Nottinghamshire coalfield to be developed. We moved east to Farnsfield, in 1987. The run-down of the coal industry followed us in the same direction. In 2014, the closure of Thoresby colliery was announced for the next year, thus ending deep-level coal mining in the county. Of the lines shown, only the test track using the ex-LD&ECR through Ollerton still exists at the time of writing. Though there have been proposals to extend the Mansfield to Worksop, Robin Hood passenger service eastwards to Ollerton, it has not yet happened.

The former lines to Bilsthorpe are now public paths. The track bed through Farnsfield to Southwell has become the Southwell Trail, a well-used amenity for cyclists, walkers, horse riders and nature lovers. It is managed by Nottinghamshire County Council and has its own active support group, the Friends of Southwell Trail.

We take full advantage of this path, which is virtually on our doorstep. Apart from the station houses and the cuttings, tunnels and bridges, there is little remaining, apart from this loading gauge at the entrance to the former goods yard, west of the former Kirklington and Edingley station, photographed in February 2015.

The platform edge with its rounded blue bricks is clearly visible at the former Kirklington and Edingley station, looking towards Southwell.

Much of Nottinghamshire’s coal mining terrain has now been gradually landscaped, with gradients on the former pit tips levelled off, trees planted, access roads improved, car parks provided, paths laid, signposts added and information boards erected to point out aspects of our mining and railway heritage and to point out bird and butterfly watching possibilities. Subsidence flashes have been transformed into fishing lakes and wildlife havens.

The old goods shed at Farnsfield is now a carefully restored private house.

This view was taken looking along the former track towards Mansfield. The junction with the freight only line to Bilsthorpe was to the right of the birch trees. Both lines closed completely in 1964. Bilsthorpe pit remained rail connected from the west until 1997, when the pit ceased production.

[Adapted from an article appearing in the current edition of the Railway Antiques Gazette, for which I am grateful to the editor, Tim Petchey.]

Some railway paintings and their artists 6. V2 No. 60984 at Dusk - Norman Elford

V2 No. 60894 at Dusk is a twilight shot of the East Coast Main Line. It shows a green liveried locomotive at the head of a mixed freight as it passes a passenger train of corridor stock travelling in the opposite direction. The scene is illuminated by the lights from the adjacent signalbox, flames from the open firebox reflecting off the smoke and steam from the engine, the carriage lamps from the train being passed, the locomotive’s own headlights and the distant street lights. It is a very cleverly constructed painting, in acrylic. Framed and glazed and mounted on card, it reached £400 in auction in November 2012 and £300 [plus the expected buyer’s premium and VAT] when sold again five years later.

Norman Elford was born in Portsmouth in 1931. He first developed an interest in railways when spending the war years with an aunt in Reading. Educated at Portsmouth Northern Grammar School, he then studied painting at Portsmouth College of Art, from 1947 to 1951, and gained his art teacher’s diploma at Bournemouth, in 1952. He taught art for 32 years, becoming a full-time artist in 1987.

Norman also painted marine and other transport subjects. He held several one-man exhibitions and his work was displayed by the Society of Marine Artists at the Mall Galleries. He also published his work in the form of greeting cards and produced 30 works for railway calendars. Norman completed many private commissions, including landscapes, townscapes and contemporary maritime subjects. He designed decorative plates for both Spode and Royal Doulton.

Norman Elford was the president of Portsmouth and Hampshire Art Society for many years and a full member of the Guild of Railway Artists. Most of his work was completed in acrylic, but he also used oils and alkyds [synthetic polyester resins]. He retained an interest in the modern railway scene, recording its new motive power types and their liveries, and he was attracted by the human-interest angle found at busy stations.

Norman Elford died in 2007. His work has become increasingly collectable and examples have twice reached four-figure sums at railwayana auctions in the last few years.

North West Rail Rover, 1973

Between 29 May and 2 June 1973 and all on my tod this time, I took a local rail rover on the main lines of the north west of England and north Wales, taking a few photographs along the way at Crewe, Lancaster, Llandudno Junction and Oxenholme.

Anyone for tennis?

Retirement brings gifts that I had not initially considered. At this time of year they include live TV coverage of the Tour de France and Wimbledon. This is when I decide - for a couple of weeks, at least - that I am really quite interested in watching cycling and tennis. Both make for splendid summer afternoon viewing. Apart from the race itself, I find the tour is besotting as a spectacle. My wife tellls that this is an example of mindfulness, in which I become mesmerised by the wonderful French rural landscapes, the scenes of so many past family holidays, as seen from the circling helicopter as the race unfolds below.

Chris suggested that waiting for a steam special to arrive probably comes into this category, too, where one is concentrating solely on the train’s imminent arrival and all the other potential worries of the day have temporarily been suspended, in anticipation of its coming into view. I knew all along that it was good for you.

Wimbledon is another kettle of fish, altogether. Links with our local tennis club have facilitated three visits to the championships over the years. On Wednesday, I spilt coffee down my carefully chosen, clean T-shirt within minutes of leaving home, exactly what I didn’t want to do before rubbing shoulders with the home counties middle class in their lightweight suits and proper, buttoned-up shirts.

The bus journey across London to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club took half an hour longer than the train ride from Newark to King’s Cross, but that’s London for you. Driving a bus through the city traffic is an art in itself. Apparently, the first few seconds of a red traffic light are still green in reality, and, therefore, can be safely ignored. Amber might just as well not bother showing up at all. The photo taken from the window of our bus on Chelsea Bridge shows the spans carrying the main line into Victoria station, with the former Battersea power station behind them.  

The infrastrusture at Wimbledon is quality. Everything is solid, neat, clean and tidy, just like the clientel. There is greenery in profusion, sprouting an abundance of colourful flowers. An army of alert, courteous, uniformed staff are on hand to remind you not to put your feet on the seatbacks in front and to keep you moving along the paths. They control entry to the courts in a strictly timed operation between games and direct you politely to the water fountains.

We had seen some of the big names in action on previous visits, including Sampras and Agassi. This time it was the turn of Tsonga, Cilic and the unfortunate [yet, former Ladies’ Champion] Petra Kvitova, who all appeared on the unshaded court two. It was not just the players that were feeling the heat.

I observed that the base line was much wider than all the other lines on the court. At least one American umpire called “fifteen-love” something else. At first, I thought it sounded like “thirteen” but a brief moment of research suggests that it might even have been “five.” “Thirty-love” was more clearly “three.” What is going on? Isn’t that numbering system crazy enough to begin with? The screens have also changed the way that they record an advantage after a deuce, showing it now as simply “Ad” rather than advantage against the person still stuck on forty. Well, life moves on.  

Back at KX and with plenty of time to catch the train home, I can confirm that my fast food of choice is now the burrito. If its new to you, too, give it a go.

Now it’s time for a bit more mindfulness.

Some railway paintings and their artists 5. A Roundhouse Scene featuring two 2-10-0s - Mike Jeffries

Mike Jeffries’s roundhouse is a typical 1960s view around the turntable, which also includes ex-LNER V2 and B1 locomotives - and could well, therefore, be showing York or Leeds Holbeck, for example. The overall grey atmosphere and the intermittent shafts of daylight bring back strong memories of such places, which were treasure troves of potential cops for young spotters like me.

Mike Jeffries is today best known for his paintings of road transport vehicles, but much of his earlier work was of the 1960s steam railway. He was born on the 26th April 1939. A professional artist, he now specialises in road and rail transport in authentic settings of the mid-20th century. Born in Plymouth, Mike attended Central Grammar school, leaving in 1955 with five GCEs, including art, but he had for years been winning a half-a-crown (12p) in the weekly Daily Express art competition which supplemented his income from his paper round.

Bored with a life at a work bench, and much to the despair of his parents, he joined British Railways as a locomotive fireman at Saltley shed, where he worked on all types of steam engines from 0-6-0 tanks to the mighty 9F 2-10-0s, until called up for National Service at the end of 1958.

Mike counts his time on the railway as one of the happiest of his life, where the dirty, arduous and sometimes dangerous but always exciting life on the footplate gave him a working knowledge of the railway and the steam locomotive, which stood him in good stead as a railway artist later on. At an exhibition in London in the eighties, his work was spotted by art buyers from Eversheds, at that time a leading trade calendar producing company. The success of the road transport calendar was immediate and seeing old vehicles in their proper settings gave him more scope to develop his approach. As he says on his website, this is when his career finally took off.

Mike was introduced to vehicle historian Peter Love who was about to launch a new magazine aimed at the growing vintage commercial vehicle market. His work now started to appear on the covers and the centre spreads of the new magazine. Print sales and commissions followed, including the use of his images on greetings and postcards. Mike has become one of the country’s leading transport artists. He aims to show the past as he remembers it, in his words “not through rose-coloured spectacles but as it really was, warts and all.”

Rail Rover Blues

I did my first all line rail rover between 28/5/72 and 3/6/72, though I spent most of the nights at home. The exceptions included one extremely uncomfortable journey on the overnight Paddington to Plymouth. I had no idea, previously, that there were so many rabbits around before the time that people normally wake up in the morning. I also spent one night at a youth hostel in Edinburgh.

My overall itinerary was: Liverpool, Bristol, London, Plymouth, Exeter, London, Derby, Liverpool, Carlisle, Glasgow, Haymarket, Edinburgh, London, Crewe, Liverpool, London, Norwich, London, Liverpool, Cardiff, London, Liverpool, Crewe, Liverpool – all in all, not very enterprising, really.

What a lightweight. I discovered that I liked the comfort of my own bed far too much to spend any more nights away from it than I needed to. I could easily have added a lot more miles and a greater variety of routes. The sole overnight journey, in a normal compartment coach from London Paddington, rather than in the available sleeper, was a nightmare. It left me with no sleep, a headache and feeling like a zombie for the whole of the next day.

However, here are some of the photos I took along the way, during British Rail’s blue [but still with some green] era. The photo venues were Bristol Parkway, Exeter St David’s, London St Pancras, Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Queen Street, Haymarket, London King’s Cross, Cardiff and Crewe.