Neil
Western Thunderer
Funny how the mind works; I?m part way through ?The Bus We Loved? by Travis Elborough, the story of the Routemaster. More than once I?ve found myself drifting away to my childhood. In York we had Lodekas rather than the Routemaster, but a proper bus with a crew of two seems an age away now. Though a I?m a child of the sixties our fruit and veg was delivered by horse and cart, Mr Grey was a friendly old boy and the horse went by an ironic name that memory fails to recall. All this would be very pleasant but inconsequential, were it not for two further visitors from long past.
Childhood holidays were most often spent in Wales, usually in some self-catering dive at the lower end of the price spectrum. A fortnight in Towyn at the end of the long hot summer of ?76 was memorable not just for the stifling heat and my individual freedom to roam equipped with pack up and rail rover but for an old double decker that pulled onto the prom at Towyn in the second week. It was, so the A board dumped onto the pavement outside said, a railway museum. I paid my 5p and was ushered into the lower deck by an old man (most men looked to be old when I was fifteen) and shown a collection of stuff. I say stuff because I can?t remember exactly what it was. I guess that it was more wagon plate than nameplate. I have vague recollections of some signs and I?m sure there was a model railway with a Triang Jinty shuttling back and forwards. I do remember that the top deck was roped off and I assume that was the living quarters. I can?t have been hugely impressed by the display, but the notion of sticking two fingers up at the world of work and living simply but following ones interests is still powerful today. I?d love to know more, but I doubt I ever will.
A little earlier, probably at eleven or twelve, I started to get the Railway Modeller. Looking back much would be pants, lots of Triang used rather unimaginatively, though it was peppered with gems. One that I?d forgotten about till today was a gauge one garden railway by, I think, a Mr Griffiths. The models weren?t spectacular, but some of the photos undoubtedly were. The stick in the mind one was a long distance shot across the garden of a tender engine hauling a train under the trees in dappled sunshine. I?m sure that it wasn?t at all finescale in approach, but the atmosphere reminded me of the photos of the Talyllyn in the early days of preservation where the railway had knitted itself firmly into the landscape. Marvelous.
I?d be very grateful and perhaps a bit surprised if anyone can add anything to either memory. I guess that the gauge one garden railway is the likelier prospect, but then again you never know.
Childhood holidays were most often spent in Wales, usually in some self-catering dive at the lower end of the price spectrum. A fortnight in Towyn at the end of the long hot summer of ?76 was memorable not just for the stifling heat and my individual freedom to roam equipped with pack up and rail rover but for an old double decker that pulled onto the prom at Towyn in the second week. It was, so the A board dumped onto the pavement outside said, a railway museum. I paid my 5p and was ushered into the lower deck by an old man (most men looked to be old when I was fifteen) and shown a collection of stuff. I say stuff because I can?t remember exactly what it was. I guess that it was more wagon plate than nameplate. I have vague recollections of some signs and I?m sure there was a model railway with a Triang Jinty shuttling back and forwards. I do remember that the top deck was roped off and I assume that was the living quarters. I can?t have been hugely impressed by the display, but the notion of sticking two fingers up at the world of work and living simply but following ones interests is still powerful today. I?d love to know more, but I doubt I ever will.
A little earlier, probably at eleven or twelve, I started to get the Railway Modeller. Looking back much would be pants, lots of Triang used rather unimaginatively, though it was peppered with gems. One that I?d forgotten about till today was a gauge one garden railway by, I think, a Mr Griffiths. The models weren?t spectacular, but some of the photos undoubtedly were. The stick in the mind one was a long distance shot across the garden of a tender engine hauling a train under the trees in dappled sunshine. I?m sure that it wasn?t at all finescale in approach, but the atmosphere reminded me of the photos of the Talyllyn in the early days of preservation where the railway had knitted itself firmly into the landscape. Marvelous.
I?d be very grateful and perhaps a bit surprised if anyone can add anything to either memory. I guess that the gauge one garden railway is the likelier prospect, but then again you never know.
Every now and then I remember to try and find a copy at shows or via ebay, but no joy so far...
