Freebies first caught my imagination with baking powder
operated plastic submarines in packets of Corn Flakes, comics with wedge-shaped
cards that you shook out to make a bang and the splendid British bird cards in packets
of Brooke Bond.
Some were genuinely sought after, especially where trying to
complete a set of cards was concerned, for example, bubble-gum cricketers.
Others were so naff that they were mildly amusing and then instantly disposable.
I’m not usually so easily drawn in these days, but I’m
making an exception on behalf of the current edition of Steam Railway. This is
partly to return a compliment. Assistant editor, Toby Jennings, wrote a kind
and appreciative item on my book Train Spotters when it first came out, that
actually reduced me to tears when I first read it in the magazine.
Together with the SR editor, Nick Brodrick, he has produced a
most useful and informative Complete Guide to Britain’s Preserved Locomotives,
which is such a labour of love and appreciation that not to award it shelf
space in perpetuity would be a travesty.
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