Day 158 – My escapades with air travel didn’t take long so here we are at Trains. Trains were always a fascination of mine from a very early age. Having a family car there was never the need to travel by train, but I was always nattering Mum and Dad to take me for a train ride. Living near the Leeds to Harrogate line, there were trains up and down many times a day. On a morning I would awaken to the sound of shunting at the goods yard, but the real yearning was for passenger trains. At 11.30am each day when playing out in the street or on Burley Park any of my fellow train loving chums and I would run to the wall by the ‘little bridge’. The ‘tooting’ would herald the arrival of the mighty ‘double header’ – two steam engines pulling the maroon liveried coaches on its daily journey to Newcastle. We would wave to the engine drivers and behind them, the passengers sitting at their tables on the ‘big train’. If out for a run  in the car east of Leeds,  we would stop at Church Fenton and watch the trains from the bridge above but Harrogate was just the best as one could go onto the platforms and if lucky would see the ‘Pullman’ parked up. To this day I’ve never experienced Pullman travel but I loved the brown and cream carriages with their curtains tied back, the tables laid with crisp white damask cloths and the table lamps with decorative shades. In those days – the 1950s – there were three classes of travel – apart from the Pullman; first class – No!, 2nd – where Dad and I would travel, and even 3rd class!

At the time Leeds had another Station besides the ‘City’ – that of the ‘Central’ on Wellington Street. The City Station was always my favourite though with its large concourse and booking hall, thankfully saved from being used an indoor car park and restored to its former glory. Where now stand the variety of eateries, then were small doorways where one would enter the particular platform needed. There were machines for platform tickets, I think it was only an old penny or maybe 2d to purchase a ticket. Also one of those machines with which to print a metal strip with your name on – or whatever one required. A red machine if I remember correctly with a sort of clockface dial but with the alphabet. One turned the handle round and then activated the machine to print.  Trainspotters would buy a platform ticket, armed with their pencils and notepads and if lucky a camera, together with meals of the day as the ticket covered all day. Mainly though the ticket would enable one to bid farewell to someone taking a journey. I can remember both a joyous and sad occasion when platform tickets were purchased for a send off, even boarding until the announcement came that the train was about to depart.

I boarded a Glasgow train with Mum & Dad to send off my Sister and her family who were bound for a cruise. An educational cruise on an ex-troop ship, the “Dunera” sailing to the Med. from Greenock, the Port of Glasgow. Only a handful of general passengers taking the cruise besides the schoolchildren, the youngest passenger being my eighteen  month old nephew.The crew eventually found a small enough lifejacket for John and spoiled him rotten! The sad occasion was in 1966 when I was leaving for  Norway to stay with a family of Norwegian friends. Mum and Dad bought their platform tickets to bid me “Bon Voyage” on the Boat Train to Newcastle and I sat in the compartment with a couple from Ormskirk, a place I hadn’t heard of at the time but always connected with the couple when mentioned since. I say sad as Dad was dying from bowel cancer, there being no treatment then and as the train slowly pulled away we waved to each other, I was feeling upset but Dad was crying as he felt he wouldn’t see me again. He passed away shortly after I returned home.

BUT – back to trains and Boat Trains, yes they were something special in days gone by. My train to Newcastle went directly to the Tyne Commission Quay from where the ‘Fred Olsen’ ships sailed to Oslo but my travelling companions were heading for Bergen with a crossing on Bergen Line’s “Venus”.  Nowadays there are no Boat Trains; if sailing from Newcastle or Hull it is a standard train with a connection to the Docks by double decker bus. As a child though listening to my Grandma speaking of her family travelling overseas from Hampshire and Surrey, their journeys always started with a Boat Train to Southampton or Tilbury Docks.

Prior to Dr Beeching closing hundreds of stations throughout the Country, so many places could be reached by steam train and I suppose the early days of ‘diesel’.  Arthington, Otley, Wetherby…. but also Kirkstall. Visiting my paternal Grandma for Sunday lunch, we would catch a bus to town, take the train to Kirkstall and walk the short distance to Broadlea Crescent, returning on the 77 bus back to Burley. It all seemed so simple then – well it was. Public transport by Leeds City Transport, Sammy Ledgards Et al, with conductors to assist and calm any nonsense on board and trains run by ‘British Rail’ with their Guards and Controller lookalikes! The good old days of steam, diesels, reliable times and straightforward ticketing – ‘British Rail’!

More to follow……

Thank you Maureen for sharing your heartfelt personal moments, until next time…

Picture from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/

Dear all,

Leeds City Council is encouraging people within their household groups or support bubbles to collect tree seeds in their local parks and green spaces to help support the growing of future woodlands across Leeds.

Running until November, residents can collect acorns, beech nuts, chestnuts and conkers, and leave them in seed collection boxes across the city for use as part of the council’s Woodland Creation initiative.

https://news.leeds.gov.uk/news/people-of-leeds-encouraged-to-collect-tree-seeds-that-will-form-future-woodlands-across-the-city?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

The Corona-19 virus is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, unless you happen to be the very same Eric Yuan who introduced the Zoom corporation to the public in 2013, without realising that soon afterwards the public would find uses for Zoom that probably hadn’t occurred to Eric Yuan.

He must have thought there would be a host of business and educational uses for Zoom, which allows up to nine people at a time  to appear on one screen in a conversation from their own homes.

True they’ve been shrunk to matchbox-size and have a tendency to freeze mid-frame, as if they were having an extreme cardio-vascular event, but it’s not wholly unlike being in a roomful of people trying to carry on as if nothing too much had happened,

For example, a group of regulars at the Chemic Tavern in Woodhouse, Leeds – including me – meet twice a week on Zoom to try and recreate the aimless chat we used to enjoy before the big lockdown and now continue because, although it’s nothing like being in a pub, it’s something like being in the human race.

The problem is that we don’t have much to tell each other because there’s very little news that’s not virus-relayed and we don’t get out much. Often we end up showing each other what we’re making for tea or trying to remember all the good stuff we’ve seen on telly, which doesn’t take long.

The community group Caring Together in Woodhouse and Little London, which offers activities and advice for the over-55s and which Lynne and I belong to, has thought of a more imaginative use of Zoom.

Last week it attempted to recreate the full cinematic experience without big screens, screaming music or precariously-employed staff. There was, however, a Zoom showing of the 2017 musical The Greatest Showman, a bag of popcorn, nuts and  pleasantly unhealthy sweets, and, to represent the bit where the audience shuffles around looking first for their seats and then for the exit, a short Zoom discussion before and after the show.

It all made for something that felt like an Occasion because watching a film at home isn’t an Occasion and talking on Zoom isn’t an Occasion but combining the two, so that there is some sense of communal activity, is at the very least an Event, similar, in quality, if not in size, to a big sports final or a premier at the Odeon, Leicester Square.

Incidentally, The Greatest Showman, based on the life of the circus entrepreneur PT Barnum but not to be confused with the 1986 musical Barnum, was… well, not exactly Oklahoma or Carousel but still welcome enough in troubled and very rainy times.

Thank you for sharing Oliver, until next time….

p.s. And a big thank you to Ann for sharing your film with us 🙂

Dear all,

“Trains & Boats & Planes” so goes the song by Dionne Warwick.  I can’t say there’s much to report on Planes as commercial aviation’s never been to my liking despite being interviewed for a job at BOAC in the late 60s. Before you think it involved globe-trotting and wings on a navy uniform, it was a clerical job in the Leeds office on The Headrow. I’d never flown by the time of the interview so that probably didn’t bode well when I told them I preferred travelling by sea.

Shortly afterwards though, a couple of friends offered to take my friend Jill and I for an hour’s flight from Doncaster Aero Club. A ‘Cessna 172’ was parked up on the grass, from where we took off and landed! We circled around South and East Yorkshire and to say it was exhilarating looking down the cooling towers of Drax Power Station at low level was an understatement and I was happy in photographing my new adventure. My Mum was terrified at the thought of what I was to do that day and I was lectured many times but being 21 and pretty fearless I dismissed, as one did, but felt guilty each flight I took thereafter.

Sunny weather was no longer a priority, just clear skies and light clouds.  The best flight was in a 8-seater ‘Cessna’ though from Leeds Bradford Airport. David was co-pilot this time with his Tutor, Mike Woodley in the ‘driving’ (?) seat. Some time ago I ‘Googled’ Mike to see whether there was any mention and was impressed to read his Film aviation services were responsible for breathtaking aerial stunts in the ‘Bond’ films and many others. That day the plan was to fly to Blackpool but due to low cloud we did a few ground controlled approaches (GCA’s as known in the trade) to assist David with his flying of a larger aircraft, which I enjoyed and felt quite blase about the whole thing. Fortunately in those days pilot Mike wasn’t into aerial stunts.

Four years later in 1972 I went to Majorca, flying at midnight from Manchester. Commercial aircraft at last, with ‘Britannia Airways’, but this time far from blase – I was terrified! Shaking uncontrollably from taking my seat to landing at Palma. I hated every minute. I spent the entire four days dreading the return, not helped by disliking the food. Being early February the weather was much better than in Leeds and surprisingly I actually enjoyed the return flight. As fellow passengers took deep breaths in readiness for the landing, I had no fear; I was excited as I knew I was nearly home. My ordeal was over and I never flew again.

Thank you Maureen, until next time….