This is the second of the committee profiles, following on from that of Jeremy Woodrow. The accompanying

Next | Previous | Random | List Sites | Next 5 | Previous 5
Join now to keep the legend alive

photo was taken a couple of months ago by the Reverend Alan Newman who spent many happy occasions at Midsomer Norton and, indeed at railway venues across the country with Ivo Peters. Those of you who buy Ivo's videos will see Alan quite regularly on them. Shortly, we should be able to announce some news about the availability of Alan's S&D photographs through the Society. I have known Alan and his love of railways in general and the S&D in particular for over 30 years. Alan also married Mary-Anne, my long suffering wife, and I back in 1975 when he was Vicar of Christ Church, Bradford on Avon and I have enjoyed many a sermon from Alan where he has managed to throw in a railway anecdote for good measure. I hope that Alan will be able to jot down a few of these anecdotes for the Telegraph in due course. Meanwhile, back to where I first discovered the spell of steam.

My first brush with railways came when I was 7 in 1957 at Huntingdon North, which was around a 100 yards from the family dentist. Whilst sitting in that chair with that sickly gas mask over my face (I can remember with some revulsion its smell even as I write this .

piece!) as yet another decayed tooth was extracted, I could hear the whistle of Kings Cross or Edinburgh bound expresses or the clanking of the numerous goods trains as they passed tantalisingly close by. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I pleaded with my father to take me to see where the sounds were coming from. That first visit was really special, even if my mouth still throbbed from the dentist's efforts. Now, over 40 years later, whenever I am in the Huntingdon area, I still try to find half an hour or so to make a pilgrimage to the station, have a warming cup of tea from the excellent buffet (highly recommended if you visit the station) and sit outside as GNER expresses flash by at over 100 mph.I still hanker after the old days when a 70 mph green giant of an A4 would whistle its warning all the way through the station and I could savour that unique smell of smoke and steam long after the train had passed. Of course, thanks to the subsequent relaxation of the ban of steam engines under the wires, I have, for a fleeting moment been able to watch a couple of A4s power their way northwards and, earlier this year, I was privileged to travel behind Sir Nigel Gresley from Kings Cross to Doncaster and return on the 40th anniversary of its record run. Sadly, I never saw anything of the adjacent Huntingdon East station although I recall a small goods train chugging towards Godmanchester and St. Ives as we waited for the local Whippet coach back to my home village, Papworth Everard (now well known for the heart transplants).

In 1960 we moved to Trowbridge in Wiltshire but, to my eternal regret I had no idea that, had I cycled 6 miles in a northerly rather than a southerly direction I would have come across Midford and its delights that so enchanted the likes of Mike Arlett. Instead, Westbury was the lure, with a shed ripe for bunking, a vantage point over what we called the New Line (the avoiding line round Westbury), and the occasional banking engine pushing freight and passenger trains up Upton Scudamore bank towards Salisbury. Here, Kings, Castles, Counties and Halls reigned supreme, with the occasional Manor or Grange and some Southern interlopers. Rarely a WD would pass by along with the later Standard classes. As diesels usurped their roles, we had Warships, Hymeks and Westerns and then the ubiquitous Brush Type 4s and, yet, I still had no inkling of the S&D. Sure, I knew of Bath Green Park and its shed, but inexplicably only associated it with the line to Bristol Temple Meads. My one and only trip from Bath Green Park by train, a birthday treat on March 28th 1963, was to Bristol, not south towards Templecombe - if only the clock could be turned back!

I remember going to Bath to see Evening Star on the last Pines but my vantage point was opposite the shed, well before she had even got into her stride. If I had known about the 1 in 50 up to Devonshire, I might well have walked there, albeit I do recall hearing the sound of 92220 as Peter Guy and Ronald Hyde eked every ounce of power out of her as she climbed up on her way to the Mendips. The significance of this event was not realised until many years later when the line was no longer there and Bath Green Park and its shed were a distant memory.

Concentration on 0 and then A-levels curtailed my railway forays. It was not until '' early 1970 that I first visited Radstock, where the Somerset and Dorset Circle was trying valiantly to exist against the background of a then somewhat less friendly local authority and BR. With hindsight, Midsomer Norton would have been a far better location for the Trust to have been located but no one was to know that then. I joined the Trust on one of my subsequent visits but, although relatively close by, I was unable to visit as much as I would have liked, reliant as I was on others for transport. Even when the Circle ran brake van trips up what remained of the line to Writhlington, I never had enough pennies to afford the fare so, even then, I never got to travel over the S&D.

My increasing involvement in the now renamed Somerset & Dorset Trust came after I had been to Nottingham for my degree - here I was able to witness the destruction of another famous railway, the Great Central, for the same stupid reasons and lack of vision as the demise of the S&D. I had researched and written a lengthy article about the demise of No. 89 in Bath, which had been published in Steam Railway about the same time as 89 was restored under the care of John Moorehouse and his colleagues. The then Trust's Bulletin Editor, Jonathan Edwards asked if I would consider joining the Committee. In a fit of madness I said yes and I started as Commercial Manager arranging annual trips behind the newly restored 88. When Mike Beale, whose late father Cyril was an S&D Driver, stepped down, I took over as Chair.

When I took over, the Trust had an £18,000 deficit (planned so as to build the shed at Washford) and I vowed to get rid of that debt by the end of my three year stint. With the help of a reasonably supportive committee and a superb Sales Manager (Paul Fear, whom we now have with us, of course) we did it in two years. However, that demanded sacrifices in expenditure that did not please everyone and, like the drivers found when attacking the Mendips, it was often an uphill struggle! That same caution with expenditure is naturally being applied to the Midsomer Norton project, with the full backing of our Committee. During my time with the Trust, I wrote one book on the life of Binegar Stationmaster Norman Down, called Down Memory Line, produced an updated book on Donald Beale's footplate experiences and edited the book Lines on a Branch written by Percy Parsons. All three books helped to secure a solvent Trust with a healthy bank balance. My resignation from that Trust came as a total surprise to many but the reasons for it no longer have any relevance. Suffice it to say that my experience to date of the Somerset & Dorset Railway Society has been one where enjoyment is the key. It is a privilege to be Chairman of an S&D organisation where everyone is pulling together for a common aim to ensure that a part of the S&D proper is resurrected after all these years. And of course, at last, within the next 18 months,