Railway Life Part One
A Victorian Railway Maxim Zealously try to excel. Industry is commendable. Perseverance deserves success. Quietude of mind is a treasure.’ This was a GWR 19th century maxim for its workforce: A world of gaslight, back to backs, the workhouse; The engine shed, the ash...
Shopping in Swindon Railway Works
Shopping in the Railway Works Retail Outlet Shops had a double meaning in my childhood: The obvious, which was the domain of women, Open every weekday except Wednesday afternoon, And the ‘Inside’, which was the domain of men, And accessible to children on Wednesday...
Holiday Haunts 1939
GWR Holiday Haunts, 1939, I bought you at Didcot in 1978: GWR Holiday Haunts, 1939, All sepia tinged arts and crafts, and art deco modernism, And Olde Englande Mockobethan, For this is a book to get you through the winter months of 1938-9, A book full of promise and...
Where the Railway Lies
Where the Railway Lies It was hardly Dombey and Son in Stroud When Brunel brought the railway into town: No earthquakes, or bridges that went nowhere; Instead: Dickensian Cheapside. I walked beneath the beech tree, by the Black History notice boards, Pondering on the...
Blackbeard and Stonehouse
Blackbeard the Pirate and Stonehouse? (Edward Thache aka Blackbeard) When you next visit Stonehouse on the train, Take a walk down to beautiful St Cyr’s Church: Take a seat there by the Stroudwater Canal, And ponder on these intriguing questions: Could the Revd Thomas...
Sir Topham Hatt
Sir Topham Hatt (aka The Fat Controller) And Swindon 2025 sees the 80th anniversary of the first of the Rev Awdry’s stories that have become linked with Thomas the Tank Engine. The first story was entitled The Three Railway Engines: the tale of ‘Edward, Gordon...