Severn Valley Railway Autumn Steam Gala 2004

What better way to bring down the curtain on an English summer than a visit to the SVR autumn gala? Late Sunday afternoon sunshine at Bewdley station certainly does it for me. The beer tent is being dismantled, the platforms are suddenly quiet and most folk have already left for home. The locomotives are either resting in the sidings or making their way back to Bridgnorth sheds. It is idyllic. Promise not to tell anyone?

Going to the dogs

The hotel in the Lakes that we had an eye on was promoting a doggy deal. It was encouraging dog owners and their pooches to fill up some otherwise sparsely occupied November bed space - probably not literally, but who knows?

The deal for those without dogs was also attractive, in fact the two deals varied by exactly £1.00, per night. We took it, no dog and all.

There were plenty of dogs around. For a time, one of the comfy settees in the lounge was out of bounds after a little accident. Obviously, a small child or an incontinent elderly person could equally have caused such a problem, so no rushing to judgement. Children and dogs are great conversation starters for grown-ups, so we felt a bit left out, being in possession of neither and simply observing at a drool-free distance.

While I was encouraging my knees to see me safely down Great Crag the next day, we passed a young shepherd bounding up in the other direction and barely breaking sweat. He was accompanied by half a dozen sheep and one of those “Black Bob” sheep dogs. As it was obviously dog week for us, I showed polite interest in the “rounder-upper,” as it hadn’t slobbered on my hand, put muddy marks on my trousers [there were enough of those already, as it happened] or barked at me, as they often like to do back home on the trail. “She’s four-years-old and she’s rubbish,” he said, “She just sits in front of the fire and gets up occasionally to frighten the postman. Her mother was a better dog.”

Since we arrived back home, I have already noticed Christmas adverts for dog beer stocking fillers, Barbour coats for dogs and the Santa Paw’s Dog Grotto at Sherwood Forest Country Park.

I went to what I thought was going to be a dog-free, Great Central Railwayana Auction at Stoneleigh on Saturday, then lot 164 came up. It sold for £340, suggesting that doggy posters are not just for Christmas, either.

Original railway art sold at railwayana auctions in 2017

The renowned railway and wildlife artist, David Shepherd, died on the 17^th September 2017, at the age of 86. Referred to affectionately during his lifetime as “the man who paints elephants,” he was a founder member and one of only five fellows of the Guild of Railway Artists. David Shepherd was well respected for his efforts in both wildlife conservation and railway preservation. He rescued two steam locomotives directly from British Railways, Standard Class 4 4-6-0 No. 75029, which became The Green Knight, and Standard Class 9F 2-10-0 No. 92203, which he named Black Prince. David was also instrumental in the restoration of the East Somerset Railway as a heritage line.

The death has also been announced of Barry Freeman, GRA, whose detailed and expertly executed railway paintings consistently attract high prices when they come to auction.

Only original railway pictures that were sold at the main live and internet railwayana auctions during 2017 are included below - namely, at Bristol, Crewe, GCRA, GNRA, GWRA, railwayana.net, Solent, Stafford and Talisman. All the information has been available for perusal in the auction houses’ own online archives. Further railway paintings will certainly have changed hands elsewhere, of course. The prolific output of GRA associate member, Joe Townend, continued in 2017, with no less than 25 of his paintings being sold.

1. The number of original railway paintings sold at the main live and internet railwayana auctions fell sharply this year, reversing an upward trend that had been apparent since 2011:

2011 - 32, 2012 - 41, 2013 - 61, 2014 - 88, 2015 - 105, 2016 - 136, 2017 - 85.

2. Not surprisingly, the number of railway artists whose work sold at these auctions also fell:

2011 - 25, 2012 - 20, 2013 - 27, 2014 - 34, 2015 - 42, 2016 – 48, 2017 - 31.

3. In 2017, the number of individual specialist railwayana auction events that included railway paintings which sold fell from last year:

2011 - 7, 2012 - 10, 2013 - 13, 2014 - 19, 2015 - 18, 2016 – 22, 2017 - 18. 

4. In 2017, the number of artists whose work topped the £1,000 hammer price at specialist railwayana auctions was also less than last year. In each year since 2011, the number of such paintings sold and the artists concerned were:

2011 - 3 paintings - by Heiron [2], Broom,

2012 - 3 paintings - by Bottomley, Hawkins, Broom,

2013 - 8 paintings - by Broom [2], Breckon [2], Heiron, Root, Price, Freeman,

2014 - 7 paintings - by Root [3], Elford, Breckon, Freeman, Hawkins,

2015 - 11 paintings - by Breckon [3], Hawkins [2], Root [2], Beech, Ellis, Elford, Price.

2016 - 13 paintings - by Breckon [4], Price [3], Hawkins [2], Freeman, Root, Broom,

                                  Greene,

2017 - 9 paintings - by Freeman [3], Price [3], Broom, Root, Breckon,

The Guild of Railway Artist’s annual Railart exhibition was again held at the Severn Valley Railway’s Kidderminster museum in 2017. Sixty-four art works were displayed from August 21^st until 1^st October. The usual splendid standard of the entries selected for show was maintained. More information about the guild is available on their website at www.railart.co.uk

 

Queen

All this current royal chat must have prompted me [subliminally] to put on a Queen Hits CD in my car on my way to the recent Talisman railwayana auction, near Newark. The sound quality is excellent. Brian May is surely one of the best lead guitarists of his generation and he certainly provides a most distinctive trademark sound.

Freddie must have had one of the clearest voices of any rock singer, yet I realised that I couldn’t quite make out a line in The Show Must Go On, so I looked it up when I got home. What I had absent-mindedly sung along to for decades as, “Another hero, another miner’s strike,” has actually been, “Another hero, another mindless crime” for all of that time. Wash yer ears out, Priestley.

We saw them at the Liverpool Empire in the mid-1970s, when they were still very much on the way up. They performed songs from their early albums, highlighting Killer Queen. The event left a strong impression, but we were never to see Freddie again.

Another Queen, Princess Royal Class No. 46211 Queen Maud, awaits scrapping at Crewe works in 1962, photograph with thanks to John Dyer. Scrapping royalty? Isn't that treason?