Broithe

On the Big Island, there are huge anomalies in the prices of tickets and it's often cheaper to book a single journey as a number of stages. A friend of mine has turned this into an art-form. This is his greatest triumph - Stafford to Portsmouth return, with 36 pieces of cardboard to achieve the lowest total fare. Only one change of train, and the same booked seat on each of the two trains. 'They' do spend a bit of time trying to undo the way round the higher prices - it used to be cheaper to buy a ticket to the next station past Gatwick Airport stop, and just get off there instead, one stop early. So many people did this that they made it an offence to do so...

It would have been about the same price, I think...

His ticket was just Stafford to Milton Keynes, no boat involved. This was when Stafford - Ballybrophy was still £45, back in the 90's, his ticket was a few quid above that.

I was once booking my ticket and a chap at the next window was booking a ticket to Milton Keynes and he was charged more, despite Holyhead alone being further than MK was from Stafford.

I was still using a Stafford to Ballybrophy ticket, via Irish Ferries (Holyhead to North Wall) until late 2008, when the journey on the Big island just got too long-winded and difficult to cope with. As far as I know, you can still get such a ticket. I had started doing the journey via Stena to DL, then the Dart to Tara Street and the bus to Heuston, initially on the ferry, but then on the HSS - but a few "events" on the HSS led me to try the alternative crossing.

De Dietrich with things like this is always to read between the lines.

I had loads, but I can't find where I Rotem down.

Maybe they'll be variable, via a DCC chip? The blinds leading the blinds...

You wait ages, then three turn up in a row.

Perhaps, elastic thread for some of the rigging, to enable masts to be unplugged and dropped, without a load of adjustment to the ropes being necessary?

A chap I worked with in England had been sent there as a child refugee during the Spanish Civil war and he made his life there. This included having an allotment next to the railway on the southern approaches to Stafford station. Over time, his allotment expanded over the fence and finally reached up the embankment to the trackside. I became aware that I also knew a chap completely separately who actually drove the weedkiller trains on the overnight spraying sessions and I asked him if he'd ever noticed this - "Oh yes, there's a pencilled note in the book, we're all careful to avoid spraying that bit"

Did you do the apostrophe module in Honours English at St Declan's CBS?

Michelin is just offices and a bit of retreading these days, and that's looking a little shady, but still sort of 'there', unlike most of the rest of Stoke's industries. One of "our lads" worked there from 1974-78, I think he left as soon as he got some paperwork - Ian Cowie, Scottish, so he might have ended up at Dundee, I suppose.

I did a Mechanical Engineering course at what was then North Staffs Poly. There was a tradition of trying to get the administration to record fake students. One of the lads had an older brother who had been there, so he knew about all this and was prepared. It was a 'sandwich course, so we all had "sponsors" as they called them, and this employment would be noted, as each lecturer took your details at the start. He mentioned that there was a lad who was not there at the time, which was fairly plausible and was asked if he knew much about him. He said that he thought his name was Eric Worthington and he worked for Bass in Burton. They spotted Worthington E as soon as they wrote it down, of course. But they didn't spot Dick Marsh, who was supposed to work from BREL in Derby, where another lad, who didn't turn up all the time, also did. Eventually, they got fed up of this Dick Marsh, who seemed to never turn up much and wrote to Derby to complain about him. A couple of weeks later, they got a reply from Sir Richard Marsh, Chairman of the British Rail Board, apologising and saying that he'd been a bit busy.

The Cortina could be as early as 1970, even with the yellow plate, but the Escort makes it 1975+. I can't make out the other car on the ramp. The "Express Parcels" logo may have first appeared around 1972, allegedly.

Bagnall's 'Isabel' was outside Stafford station for many years. Fully accessible and the scene for many heirloom photographs. Eventually, there was some deterioration to the point that things became a little 'difficult'. However, she was repaired, after a false start, and now runs again on the Amerton railway a few miles away. A couple of hundred yards away, in the play park, was a steam roller, with rather larger drops available from it.

Almost ashamed? Ten months is nothing. I have a kit upstairs that I started in 1977. I'm about 80% of the way there now...

The size of the market defines that production will be of a batch nature, so items will often be sold-out fairly quickly. @WRENNEIREis, amongst others, often a source of odd remainders from the past. Do you have any particular targets?

I understand a Bf 110 was claimed.

Ha, this reminded me of something that confused me for a while. The dreaded reports were issued, and one teacher very surprisingly described me as 'very interested and engaged' with his subject. For several weeks in the summer holidays, this intrigued me, as I very much doubt that I was - then I realised what he thought he was seeing. I went to ten schools and this was one where you moved room for every subject through the day - you were required to queue up outside the room and be let in. I always made a strong effort to be at or very near the front of the queue, and this was presumably what his assessment seems to have been based on, there was no other reason that I could see. I was at the front of the queue because I was keen to get a window seat.

The yellow should, obviously, also be a bit paler. I'll leave it on a windowsill, until it's more of a straw colour.