Reaching out to the Past

It's official - I am obsessed! This morning I bought a 1980 Model Railway Constructor magazine that I have wanted for ages. This is not something I have bought just to please Robbie, I haven't even told him about it because he would probably tell me to buy a magazine about Deltics instead!

I have been researching my family tree for a number of years and as many of my ancestors lived in and around Northampton I have become fascinated by old photos and old maps of the town. If only we could have street view on old maps, there so many places that I would like to see as they were when my grandparents and great grandparents knew the town. I would like to see where they lived, where they worked and the places that mattered in their lives. Most of all I would like to see the three railway stations in the town as they were then.

We think the world has progressed but in terms of public transport my grandmother's horizons were much wider than my own. She could travel to many towns and villages within the county by train and if she wanted to travel further, the train would take her; and for more local journeys she could rely on the tram. 

The first of our railway stations to close was the most convenient and most beautiful of the three. It was less than a five minute walk from St John's station to the market square. Clearly customer convenience was not a high priority even then - some things never change! Saint John's Station had opened in 1872, it was the northern terminus of the Midland Railway's Bedford to Northampton line. The station was built above street level on red brick arches which carried the line across the road and out of the town on the 21 mile journey to Bedford via Piddington (which in reality was much closer to Horton), Olney and Turvey. It was closed in July 1939 as a cost cutting measure and the services were re-routed to the much less convenient Castle Station.

Now it would take Sherlock Holmes to find any clue that a station ever stood on that spot, the station seems to have been erased from local memory and there are so few photos that you could almost suspect a cover up. So my reason for buying the old magazine was that it contains plans of St Johns and with the help of maps and old photos I can perhaps imagine the station in it's glory days.

Crazy Ideas 18.09.2007

As if my previous entry about coping with Robbie in retirement wasn't enough for me to worry about, I now have something else to cope with. One of his colleagues has been putting silly ideas into his head. He suggested that Robbie should buy an old station to live in so that all his railway junk could be displayed in the right setting. Robbie is more than capable of thinking up his own crazy ideas, he doesn't need any help! When we were in Norfolk he spotted an old station building in an estate agent's window, thankfully the magic words 'sale agreed' were emblazoned across the picture. To me it looked like a dilapidated old shed, but it cost almost as much as the value of our house! That really isn't my vision of the future, but from the sparkle in his eyes when he was talking about it, I suspect it is Robbie's idea of heaven.

Now from one disturbing thought to another, sadly I have to mention the 'F' word yet again. Ford, I detest Ford! Last week I had the wiper blade stolen from my Galaxy. Frustrating, but not the end of the world - or so you would have thought. We drove to Halfords to get a replacement and stay legal, but the wipers that claimed to fit didn't, typical! Next I contacted my garage and he arranged to have some wipers by the following day (Friday), I popped in to have the wiper fitted and these were also the wrong fitting! I waited while the garage man phoned several suppliers and eventually after providing my full registration number and loads of other info he found the right blades. They were delivered by courier later in the day and I had to go back again to have the blade fitted. Just another device by Ford to complicate what should be simple and squeeze extra money out of the poor fools who drive their cars.

By Sunday the car had a warning message saying 'Alternator Workshop' and as the car has had a history of battery charge problems it was booked in to have the problem checked. By Monday it had developed another fault which I feel sure must be clutch related so I am feeling totally frustrated. I dread to think how much this little lot is going to cost!