Reflections

During the fifties there were 4 million houses with no bath, no hot water.
And the same amount with outside toilets. Smoke pollution gave rise to fog and
Smog .  Monday was washday, and as I lived almost on top of the railways you could occasionally hear moans and groans from some of the housewives who’s washing on the line was getting covered in smut from the railways.
In the winter only one room in the house was heated usually the living room and when you woke up in the morning you would have to scrape off the frost growing on the inside of the windows to see outside.
Nine times out of ten it was foggy and we always saw snow in the winter, sometimes it would stay laid for weeks. And the railways plodded on, leaves on the track or the wrong kind of snow was not enough to grind everything to a halt.
Tins baths in front of the fire on Sunday night was the norm and over a mile walk regardless of weather to get to school. The push bike came later.
It is this that drives me to create model railways.
And those gentle giants we call locos, 100 tons Of fire and steam, graceful line and character. Most of us have affections for the great fire eating animals that puff and hiss as it moved us from A to B.
Lest not we forget the crews who fired and drove these magnificent beasts and kept them  running. And all the thousands of people who worked the railways came rain or shine.
The atmosphere of the railways, the buildings and the character of the railways
And of course those who had the foresight to photograph just about anything to do with
railways and produce the wealth of information available to us today.