A Visit to Tuxford

We went to have a look round an art gallery in Tuxford. Coincidentally, Tuxford had been at the back of my mind since Bill Taylor had spoken about the Lancashire, Derbyshire and East Coast Railway to our local history society. Tuxford had been the railway’s HQ, with sheds as well as locomotive and carriage works.

On our way to the gallery we found the Lodge Lane Industrial Estate just south of the village. Such places can often seem a little unwelcoming with their miles of spiked aluminium fencing, a proliferation of security notices, CCTV and watchful eyes from the portacabin gate house.

Crossing the car park, which had once been occupied by a profusion of sidings and a transverser, I picked out the single storey, former LD&ECR’s station building on the northern edge of the complex. Above the door was the sign, “The Goods Yard.” It is now occupied by model railway specialists - designers and builders of bespoke layouts, as well as providers of a wide range of relevant kit. The nearby former LD&ECR’s wagon works now houses various industrial enterprises.

Tuxford had four stations by the end of the nineteenth century, which, for a settlement of its size, must have seemed like very generous provision.

 

We eventually found the art gallery in the centre of Tuxford and the eager and communicative artist in residence showed us round. I looked at all the pictures and tried to make sense of the various artists’ objectives, where stated.  

Over lunch, however, I concluded that the print of the Jubilee and un-rebuilt Patriot at Birmingham New Street by Philip D. Hawkins and the detailed large-scale maps of the old Tuxford LD&ECR complex that adorned the walls in the hallway at the Good’s Yard had done more for me than anything I’d noticed at the art shop. Each to their own, I suppose.

Remembering a Badminton [and Train] Man

John Tarry, who died last year, has been formally remembered in a plaque erected recently above the entrance to the sports hall at Southwell Leisure Centre. As the inscription reveals, John was devoted to helping badminton players of all ages and abilities develop their skills.

John was much more than a coach, however. He ran a number of clubs and development groups over a forty-year period. John seemed to be present at every home match for all of the various club teams. He would provide the shuttles, score cards, record book, pen, table and drinks and then attend to anything else that needed doing. 

Badminton was not John’s only interest. He talked knowledgably about jazz, cycling, local history, family history, the Roll-Royce engineering club, aeroplanes and trains.

Sitting on the bench at Friday club nights, John and I often talked about trains. When I was researching the former Nottingham Suburban Railway, John provided four pages of notes and a hand-drawn map to show me where I could find visible reminders of the line. Chris and I followed his itinerary in the car over a couple of subsequent afternoons. He spoke with affection about the long-gone Nottingham Victoria station and about train spotting at Grantham in the heyday of steam.

John kept in touch with the current railway scene, partly through various magazines that I had passed on to him. He bought some OO gauge models to display at home on a short section of track. He was as pleased as Punch to tell me about his acquisition of a Class 91 electric locomotive from a favourite model shop in Pickering.

The plaque is a fitting reminder of John’s contribution to his chosen sport. I will also remember a man who - like me – was more than happy to talk about trains.

Teignmouth

Another famous railway location is where the West of England main line curves out of the station at Teignmouth and onto Brunel’s sea wall. In the summer of 1979, we regularly walked up and down the steep, Eastcliff Walk footpath that crosses the line here, providing a link between our guest house and the promenade.

Our son was just eleven months old and one of the attractions was that our hostess provided a baby-sitting service, which meant we could enjoy the fleshpots of Teignmouth most evenings during our stay. One morning, the landlady rather abruptly demanded to know if we were Irish [perhaps prompted by my Merseyside accent?]. She told us that Lord Mountbatten had been murdered on a boat whilst out fishing. I did not know it then but I am exactly 48.1% Irish [more than any of the other identifiable bits of me, as it happens]. It was just as well I didn’t have that knowledge to hand because I would have missed my breakfast that day, I think, at the very least. She was livid.

That year, I began a period in which I took lots of pictures of our children at play and none of the railway scene, apart from very occasional trips to the embryonic, steam heritage lines. Meanwhile, a procession of HSTs, Brush 4s and Peaks continued to pass through at close quarters. The last Western diesel to be scrapped had been disposed of at Swindon just one month earlier.

On our recent return to Teignmouth, I caught a glimpse of things to come in the form of a Class 800 Intercity Express Train [IET] heading west. Continuity was provided by the iconic HSTs, still going strong forty years on.

Signalling my intentions

The lanes at the morning swim were reduced from four to three. Half the pool was now for slow swimmers, and I know my place. The signals were clear enough – clockwise for slow, anti-clockwise for fast, clockwise for medium, all arranged so that where there might be arms and legs straying outside the lines of coloured floats, impact is minimal because everyone is theoretically going the same way at these points.

Except that they are not, because the slow lane is not a lane any more. It is a free for all. I signal my intentions by moving off clockwise as instructed and virtually hugging the side of the pool but there is a backstroke swimmer bearing down on me. I take evasive action but it takes me into the path of someone coming up behind me very fast for the slow lane. There are now ten of us and we are more or less split between those obviously trying to follow the rules and those who seem oblivious to them. Goggles and caps apparently give license to ignore any signage at all.

When in Newton Abbott recently, I was surprised by some random signalling - this semaphore signal gantry at the junction of Torquay Road and Brunel Road. Chris took a quick photo when we stopped at the adjacent, roadside version. I was in the right lane, thank goodness, or rather the left lane - the slow one.

It was great to see this reminder of Newton Abbott’s former importance as a railway junction – once with its own sheds and workshops, of course. Railway book publishers, David and Charles, begun by David St John Thomas in 1960, occupied the site after the railway vacated the premises. They moved on to Exeter in 2015, as part of F+W Media.

Back in the pool, I completed my forty lengths in an astonishingly slow time and just as the whistle was blown for the end of the session. I though about querying the decision to reduce the number of slow lanes from two to one and effectively creating an “anything goes”, choppy water, slowcoach zone. Then I thought, “Naaagh”, or something similar. 

    

Biking it to Oxford

When we cycled to Oxford from Wallasey in a round trip that also included youth hostels at Bridges, Malvern Wells, Duntisbourne Abbotts, Stratford-upon-Avon and Shrewsbury, over a few days in April 1965, it was the furthest I’d ever reached from home by bike - a personal record which stands to this day.

Passing Oxford station on the park-and-ride bus this week, I was struck by the forest of bikes parked outside the station. We obviously started something.

Exeter Central

From our farmhouse family holiday, I took the bus to Taunton on the Monday morning of 29/7/63. I was in the first carriage with my head out of the window immediately behind 4993 Dalton Hall’s swaying tender all the way to Exeter St David’s. Hauled up the hill to Central by 34078 222 Squadron, I then changed trains again for the Exmouth line with 80059 as far as Polsloe Bridge Halt.

I ran to Exmouth Junction sheds. It was like heaven on earth. I knew it would be special. I copped almost everything I saw, including Merchant Navy 35026 Lamport and Holt Line [coming off the shed and backing down to Central prior to a trip to Waterloo] and 15 light Pacifics. I was ecstatic. The return journey to Taunton was behind a Warship - a taste of things to come, of course, but on that day, I just didn’t care.

Here is Exeter Central 55 years later, still nestling comfortably in its shallow valley below Northernhay Gardens. The centre roads have gone but the platforms and canopies are instantly recognisable. We came in by bus this time and though Exeter has a lot to recommend it, the bus station is not one of its finest attractions. In fact, it’s awful.

Just Like Eddie

Sometime in 1965 or shortly before, Ian and I went down to New Brighton bathing pool where we obtained Heinz’s autograph. With the encouragement of record producer, Joe Meek, Heinz had left the Tornados after their stupendous hit single, Telstar. He had his only significant solo triumph with Just Like Eddie, a tribute to Eddie Cochran. On the same night, we also got Pete Best’s signature [the former Beatles drummer], as well as other members of the Lee Curtis All Stars. The performers entered the bathing pool on the seaward side of the complex, where the upstairs ballroom was situated.

A little later during the same year while I was staying with my uncle in Winchester, I visited Eastleigh locomotive works in search of Merchant Navy No. 35020 Bibby Line. I found her in the process of being broken up. Well, to be honest, she was already in bits, but I counted her anyway because she was the last one of the class that I needed and I certainly wouldn’t see her again. I have no idea at all how I managed to get around the works on my own because you normally needed a permit and to be part of an organised party.

This week, I went back to Eastleigh for the first time in 53 years. We had been invited to a family event just down the road and it was too good an opportunity to miss. Chris took this photo of the station frontage, while I reminisced about how I could possibly have bunked round the works.

Reminding myself online about Eastleigh before travelling south, I came across a newspaper article about Heinz Burt, a son of Eastleigh, no less, who worked at Eastleigh locomotive works after his career as a rock singer had folded. Heinz apparently missed out on royalties that should have come his way. He was living in a tower block in Southampton when he died, by then penniless, of motor-neurone disease in the year 2000. He was 57 years old. Heinz has a road named after him in his home town. We found Heinz Burt Close on the way to the station. It’s strange how things sometimes come together.