Welchester

Gareth Jones 1938-2023. See my post in Obituaries. Anthony Manor was photographed at an open day at Machynlleth. One of the women in the first picture is Gareth's mother.

I have learnt of the death yesterday of Gareth Jones. Gareth had a very long railway career. His mother, who ran a guest house in Towyn (as it then was) had heard that Mr Rolt was looking for help on the little railway, so Gareth became a fireman on the Talyllyn Railway. He was twelve years old. Later he was immortalised as the young fireman in ‘Railway with a Heart of Gold’. On leaving school in September 1953, Gareth joined the Western Region as a cleaner at Machynlleth. His first job was to clean Dukedog no. 9012. The following February, aged fifteen and a half, he was passed to fire. There followed a long career as fireman, driver and inspector with British Railways, EWS and DB. Gareth finally retired as a senior traction inspector with DB Cargo five years ago at the age of eighty. He had fired an driven the Royal Train on many occasions, and was popular with colleagues and the public. Rolt in ‘Railway Adventure’ describes him as 'a born railwayman’. May he rest in peace.

Yes, they did. I was able to collect mine, as was a friend.

Is it a plane tree?

Yes. The loco is carrying a BR smokebox number. The king's body was conveyed to King's Cross for the lying in state at Westminster Abbey, where the funeral took place, then hauled by Windsor/Bristol Castle to Windsor for the burial.

Looking forward to following this. I visited Gloucester's stations many times in your timeframe; my father had an office in the old Central Station, then in Eastgate Station during the building of the new station (the offices here continued in use even after the track had been lifted on the Tuffley Loop), and finally in the goods yard (near the road motor shed) before retiring in 1980. One thing I want to query is when did the goods shed go? It was pretty dominant, and I'm fairly sure it was still there in 1975, though how much longer it lasted I don't know.

And the word 'back'.

You just reminded me of the schoolboy rhyme: Poor Willie's dead and gone. We'll see his face no more. For what he thought was H2O Was H2SO4.

A splendid film. The wagons at 1m04s, however, have a distinct transatlantic appearance.

A friend (who knew him) reminds me that today is the anniversary of the death of F.W. Hawksworth in 1976. Just thought it might be of interest.

Nice one.

SNCF trains drive on the left except in Alsace-Lorraine, which was German when the railways were built. Motorists in Sweden drove on the left until the 1970s when they changed sides.

Well, you can buy horsemeat burgers in France, but I've never seen donkey.

It only really works for lobsters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobster_Thermidor

The tomb of the true King James III in, er, Rome.

I'm not going to argue with a lawyer about lawfulness! There were those, however, who considered themselves still bound by their oath of allegiance to James II, and refused to acknowledge the new régime.

Yes. Dogs are very resilient, aren't they? Fortunately, the vet was able to perform the extraction under local anaesthetic while we waited and we could bring her straight home. It shouldn't make life too difficult, as I gather dogs use their incisors only for prehension. It's a shame though as she's only three.

The Midland Railway at Gloucester could put up a crediatable opposition.

You'd be looking sorry for yourself if you'd run into a solid object and had to have all your upper incisors removed.

Is the Alex Crowley in this clip a descendant of Aleister, the 'Great Beast'?

Did not Cherie Blair come from Liverpool? Or was it just that her father played a 'Scouse git' in Till Death Do Us Part? It doesn't seem to have held her back?

You're thinking of 'Jump', which I'm often tempted to sing in church.

I forgot to say that the station in Walsingham is not Catholic but Eastern Orthodox. http://wasleys.org.uk/eleanor/churches/england/norfolk/walsingham_stseraphim/index.html

The protesters ('Walsingham Witness') are generally held to be part of the enjoyment of the pilgrimage. Disappointingly, their website seems to have disappeared. I once saw a splendid placard which listed the consequences of idolatry in cumulative heinousness and ended, 'mass murder, international terrorism and bingo'.

The tonic wine has its own (age protected) website: https://www.buckfast.com/