Every Picture Tells a Story - 5 – Locomotion...

Advent(urous) Train spotting…

December 1^st and I was presented with a gift from a work colleague. She had rather gracefully bought advent calendars for the whole office; you know the ones with the god awful, sickly cheap chocolate in them.

Not that I’m an ingrate or anything, I just dislike chocolate of any kind and I’m not Eight years old anymore. The cover of said calendar being Thomas the Tank Engine.

Adopting the office “Advent Calendar policy” this now sits on my desk, with the annoyingly cheery tanker, smugly gawking at me with his fat silvery, boat race.

Peering at this visage, my mind wandered to question if he used to have eyebrows…as I spoke to Sue in the Gamma Knife Stereotactic Radiotherapy Department about government NHS financial budgets. She may have known, but I neglected to enquire.

It does, however remind me of a time when I was a train spotter (shush)... and I was taken all round the country by my dad just to write numbers in a book. Nay, not just a casual note in a jotter, it required this young lads courage to ask the driver to “cab” a loco.

Standing in the cab of a train we often asked “what that stick did” or “have you ever drove a steam engine” or so such intelligent curios.

The infamous number 50007 (pictured) was named Sir Edward Elgar – him of Land of Hope and Glory Fame, and if you sought out that particular locomotive, you had struck gold (or green as was the engines livery).

However one great memories of the time was the late, great Willie Rushton, him of fame for That was the week that was, reading the Thomas the Tank Engine stories. I remember Johnny Morris from Animal magic doing the same job. Legends both.

They spoke in such a way that as a young child, you would listen transfixed, chewing on every word and savouring the taste long after the record finished. The scratchy quality of the 33-rpm discs just added to the experience and the real life exploration of the railways became a joyous blurred journey of fiction, reality and fantasy.

It’s questionable that any of us grow up, especially boys/men. Steam trains still hold a special place in my heart, so it’s maybe a trifle harsh that I overly grumble about a small blue tank engine evading my space for 25 days…

…In fact, I think after all the chocolate has been scoffed by the office girls, moreover… I shall indeed miss Thomas the Tanker…