Chris and I made our plans to
join our local group, at the Bodmin and Wenford Railway but
decided to make a weekend of it, leaving on the Saturday morning
to enjoy what promised to be some reasonable weather for the
weekend.
Packing the usual summer clothes
- waterproofs, wellingtons and umbrella’s plus one or two summer
tops just incase, we set off in what looked to be reasonable
weather.
Leaving Exeter we took our usual
route down the old A30 through Tedburn St Mary and on to
Okehampton, briefly going on the new A30 for a few hundred yards
before making a bolt for the pleasanter Devon roads, where our car
is much more at home, then on down to Launceston,
We took the A388 to Liskeard and
then made a detour down to Looe for some lunch. By then the sun
had really come out and we had a pleasant stroll around the town,
stopping to marvel at a collapsed wall close by the water,
completely burying the whole front garden including the residents
white van!! Quite a scary sight and one I remember being reported
on the local news.
Next we decided to visit Polperro
and again had a pleasant stroll to the lovely little harbour, with
a stop to enjoy a Cornish cream tea. Leaving Polperro we decided
to have a look at the Bodinnick Ferry as there was still time
before we were due at our B&B for the night. The road took us
down to the river where we enjoyed a very pleasant crossing by
ferry, after exchanging some pleasant chat with a couple who lived
next to the ferry, out on their patio, who called across to say
how much they liked the car, especially the paint work, which was
a lovely compliment seeming as she had been on the road for the
whole day.
From Fowey we drove up the
opposite side of the river, through Lostwithiel and on to our
lovely B&B in Lerryn for the night. What a find, gardens right
down to the river, with all the children taking advantage of the
lovely evening weather, out in their boats and dingys it was a
scene straight out of"swallows and amazons".
After a very pleasant meal and
cooked breakfast we were suitably refreshed for the drive to the
Bodmin Railway the following morning. This event had been arranged
by Brian and Dorothy Murrish and we were expecting upwards of 23
people to the event and Brian had even said if you didn’t fancy
the drive, to bring your modern. Unfortunately there was a great
deal of rain across the two counties and obviously some did not
fancy getting wet, but 13 hardy souls turned up to make it a
lovely day.
Brian and Dorothy came in their
lovely 1924 Standard Kennilworth having just earned an MOT
following long and worrying front axle repairs. Steve, Karen and
Kayleigh Lovegrove in their 1934 Standard 10, us in our Standard
Flying 8, Andrew Tillotson (1938 Standard Flying 9 under
restoration) and his friend, Alan Skinner (1955 Standard 10 under
restoration) his wife Hazel and sons, Daniel and Matthew,
completed our group.
After a quick drink we enjoyed
the first steam train ride of the day. Your ticket actually
entitles you to two trips in all, as the train returns to the
station and leaves again on a second different route.
| Thanks to
Brian whose mis-spent youth was spent in helping in the
preservation of these magnificent engines, he was able to
pull some strings on the groups behalf and had arranged
four footplate rides for us. Four members of the group
would accompany the driver and fireman on a run.
The four VERY lucky
participates were Chris, on the down route, Brian back up
again, yours truly on the second route and Steve Lovegrove
back to the station and what an unforgettable experience
that was. It wasn’t previously on my "to do"
list but it definitely should have been, I didn’t
personally stop grinning for hours afterwards and still
cherish the memory of that ride on the footplate, as do
all the others, although I suspect Brian is an old hand. |
Chris
Bowden and Steve Lovegrove are trusted with the Engine !
Entries
invited for a "guess the caption" competition to
Brian Murrish, hawksworth147@talktalk.net |
After spending a pleasant and
very social lunch together (apart from the fact that they ran out
of pasties can you believe it in Cornwall - we were all shocked) ,
we won’t say who had the last one, but you know who you are…..Brian
had arranged an escorted tour of the engine sheds. Well that
turned out to be an eye opener as well, it was a bit of an
aladdins cave, with engine after engine, behind one another and
sheds all over the place.
|
Lady
driver? |
We spent a very
pleasant hour being given a history of the stock and admired
the Camel which Brian had pumped up and down the track on a
number of occasions. We even saw the return of 5552 as she
chuffed back into the station, from the side of the track.
We had a great day, the
gods were kind to us and we only had a very small shower
during the lunch time. (sorry Phil and Lynda that we couldn’t
arrange some better Cornish/Devon weather for your trip).
Finally it was time for
goodbyes. Andrew and his friend had left earlier and Brian
and Dorothy were first to leave in their Kennilworth,
followed by Steve and Karen and finally ourselves and Alan
and Hazel and their family. |
We had decided to vary our return
route and on reaching Tavistock took the road to Princetown and
Two Bridges across Dartmoor. We stopped for a drink and snack and
enjoyed the spectacle of a herd of ponies with their foals,
causing chaos with the traffic as they weaved backwards and
forwards, crossing and re-crossing the main road. It certainly
kept us amused until it was our turn to ease our way past the
group.
All in all, we had a lovely
weekend, the meeting was excellent and much thanks go to Brian and
Dorothy for organizing such an interesting venue and day out, and
for everyone who attended. Our little Standard behaved
immaculately, I swear they don’t have a single horizontal road
in Cornwall!! We were either going up a steep hill or down one!!
One casualty was Colin Fry who
set off in good time for the event, but had car problems and
phoned with his apologies. We were very sorry not to see Colin and
Rita, but this was due to circumstances beyond his control and we
look forward to seeing him at the next event.
One of the reasons for our get
together, was to talk about our events for 2009. The group intend
to have more events in the Spring and Autumn next year, so watch
out for our adverts.
Also look out for details of the
Devon and Cornwall groups Christmas lunch, which was a great
success last year. We intend to hold this at the end of January
2009 and look forward to seeing you there.
Report by Linda Bowden
Photos by Brian Murrish
