Of battleships and gazebos

2nd July 2023

'Nostalgia isn't what it used to be' is one of those witty one-liners. And somehow we always like to escape in our imaginations to that period when 'Britain stood alone' and re-enact firefights where no-one actualy gets hurt and everyone is safe in the knowledge that we know who wins in the end. When you can don your uniform or other period wear (that you were too young actually to dress in) but cast it off at the end of the day and return to the 2020s.

I had anticipated a quiet week this week. Adam had gone on holiday, leaving instructions for the yard which has been home to HFS for the last few years to be vacated by June 30th and I had loads of paperwork to catch up on. Not that I succeeded in catching up, some jobs got done but others got pushed down the priority list as other emails or phone calls happened. Then there were such welcome interruptions as the arrival of Stuart's G's anticipated movie, 'Another Day in the Life of Pete Briddon' celebrating the Janus' exploits. At the Briddon Country Pile, the normal clutter of living was ratched up a couple of notches as Steph prepared for a stand at the Peak Rail 1940s event this last weekend. This event used to be one of the big money-earners in the PeaK Rail calendar. It was co-ordinated by a husband and wife team and modelled, they once said, on the NYMR event. It featured a full scale battle with re-enactors, and I found myself involved for several years hauling trains which might be retreating Germans or such, with smoke trailing from the brake van as Americans fired after us.

This 'battle' took place with the passenger train down the line, and the viewing stage was the Rowsley station platform. Steph and our daughter Jennifer ran several stalls, mostly providing homespun entertainments - like 'Bomb a Battleship' - throw bean bags at boxes with German ships inscribed on them. I even made up a 'defuse a bomb' game whereby you had to extract a 'fuse' without making a circuit with the surrounding aperture from the 'bomb' (a black painted cylinder complete with fins).

But of course any succesful event on the railway for which a certain company director couldn't claim credit was unaccceptable. Ignoring the fact that she inevitably fell out with some re-enactors who then decided that they had 'other plans' for the weekends concerned. Eventually she took over running it completely, screwed it up and even tried palming off the organisational work to a 'professional' outfit and would you believe, the railway actually lost money on it so the 40s event got dropped. Wind the clock back forward and here we are with a new management trying - I hope succesfully - to bring it back, and to help support it, Steph took a pitch for a sales stall getting rid of some of the stuff we'd acquired in years gone by for the 40s events.

The only snag was, I had an enthusiast group visiting - Tilley's Tours - booked before I was aware of the event let alone that Steph would be committed there. Anyway, late Friday afternoon Andrew and I popped down to the shed to do a bit of tidying/re-arranging in order that visitors could get in and see what there was to see. The crane was moved up and parked in front of T2, pigeon hole racking, which we still haven't had time to position in its new 'home' was moved aside to enable a walk-thru' etc, etc. I took a bit of time out to make a tray to sit the battery charger on, together with batteries. Our various power tools like Big Mak, are all of the same make and take the same battery, so the rule is, if the battery goes flat, draw another from by the charger and put your flat one on to recharge. But up to now the charger has sat on a chair next to our tea-corner and I want to get the chair back into use as a chair (there's other things dumped on it too, but you have to start somewhere) and have been planning that for a while.

Saturday and an annoyingly early start. By agreement I head down alone to the shed to position the locos (pulling most of Track 1 forwards so that they are not hidden behind Track 2) and start untie-ing sheets, while Andrew drives up to Rowsley with Steph and Jennifer to help set up the gazebo, etc. The railway has thoughtfully provided a supply of rail chairs to act as weights as the forecast is for gusty wind. I get my part done, tapes up, and Andrew arrives just in time to help drop the sheets (gravity may do its thing but without a little care, gutters and corners on cab rooves cause big rips as it does so). Tilley's Tours turned up at 09.00, about 12 of them, and after the customary 'safety briefing' and 'what's here' handout they're left to get on and wander round. I made Andrew and me a tea (we hadn't had time for one earlier) and answered questions. The 1940s event meant a different train service, so the first came past at a quarter past ten and after it had gone, I fired up Louise to push the locos back from their vantage points and clear the headshunt to run RS8 on cab rides.

I had to do this alone, as Andrew had been 'summoned' back to Rowsley as the gazebo was trying to fly away in the wind after escaping from the chairs. He went off armed with a hammer, bits of rebar and sundry lorry straps to anchor things down. (Tent pegs? Rail yards tend to be very firm underneath. Your average tent peg goes about 6 inches down, hits solid yard and bends whilst not getting much grip). Amongst our visitors were Gordon Edgar and Roy Burt. I remember meeting Gordon in my teens (so 50 years ago) when I was hanging out with Rich Morris and co., but Gordon went off to join the forces and only a few years ago did we make contact again after he put a picture of me up on Flickr. Andrew returned as the last of the cab rides was made, and after the majority had left, Roy stayed on for a cuppa and seemed surprised to learn that this wasn't Andrew's place of full time employment! With the morning drama over, we headed back home to sort some lunch, returning later to resume adding stuff to the scrap skip. I started to service the Lister TS2 that arrived from auction last week. We'd already found the air filter had disintegrated so I'd sourced a new one and an oil filter, and was draining the oil from the sump when Steph rang to say they were packing up and would we come and assist? We shut up shop, and headed back to Rowsley in convoy.

Sunday, and first thing it was back up to Rowsley to get Steph and Jen sorted. Here's the stand being decked out and you can't see the lorry straps that are securing it to the fence, lamp-post, etc behind.

Then it was back home, make sandwiches and return to the shed. I finished off servicing the TS2, while Andrew decided he would sort out some of the stillages in the ferry van. Nine of them were duly extracted, some large lumps from inside the shed were allocated to a stillage and some stuff from the stillage allocated to the scrap skip. There is a tendency, when you start off, to hang on to everything as it 'might be useful some day' but after 25 years of this - more if you start from my youth and narrow gauge - you come to the conclusion that some of the tatt is never going to have its day and is not worth the space it's occupying. Gone therefore, is the seized Hatz engine, retained as spares for the one which we sold several years ago. We had a visitor due but there was a fire on he M1 and he was stuck in the tailback, so I went off to assist in packing the stand up at Rowsley and returned just after he'd arrived. He was collecting some parts from the 422 Fowler that will go on their 424 0-6-0. By the time he'd headed off it was time to shut up shop for the day, so not a long, exciting report I'm afraid.

Next week should be back to something more normal, as the wagons we collected from the MoD earlier this year get returned to them and the railway has asked for another Briddon-origin locomotive to operate at a special event next weekend. But I'll tell you all about that, same time next week. See ya then.