Steam and stuff ......... forty four years ago on Princess Street

It was 1980 and having followed a steam cavalcade of vintage cars, lorries and buses I came acroos the Super Sentinel.

Location; Princess Street, Manchester

Picture; Steam and stuff .....forty four years ago on Princess Street, 1980 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Stand pipes, petrol pumps, electricity charging points .... the story of 20th travel in 3 objects

Now I guess there are many ways of writing about the revolution in private and public transport during the last century.

Steam and stand pipe, 1949

The bicycle of course has its origins in the 19th century but really comes into its own from 1900 onwards, as does the motor bike while the reliance on horses clung on into the 1950s but had pretty much had its day.

And those stately corporation trams which were everywhere at the start of the 20th century were gone by the middle of that century, and the brief flirtation with trolley buses vanished soon after they were introduced.

All of which just leaves the petrol driven vehicle and its predecessor the steam powered lorry, car, and traction engine.

Petrol pumps, 1920-22

So here for no other reason than I can, are three objects that mark that transformation and point to the next phase which is the electric car.

Petrol pumps, the 1960s

The standpipe was essential for a steam powered lorry, while petrol pumps in their many variations have been with us for a very long time, and now there are the electricity charging points, which can be found at motorway stations, on the streets, and soon in people’s homes.

The delightful drawings of petrol pumps comes from a project my friend Ann undertook in 1964, which described the early history of the petrol pump and was illustrated by her own series of pictures.

I have to confess that I had not really given the petrol pump much thought, but like so many things it is a bit of our history which is easily taken for granted.

The idea had originated in the USA and was brought back to Britain by a member of the AA and in 1919 the AA opened ten filling stations which were staffed by their men in uniform who only sold to AA members.

Electric charging stations, 2009

Needless to say the concept caught on, and Ann went on to document the story through the inter war years and on into the 1960s.

Not perhaps an original idea for a blog story but I like.

Location; the 20th century

Pictures, Lorry, Bury Old Road, near Heaton Park, February 21st, 1949, from the collection of Allan Brown, petrol pumps and filling stations 1963-64 from the collection of Ann Love, three converted Prius Plug-In Hybrids Charging at San Francisco City Hall public recharging station, 2009, Felix Kramer (CalCars). Image retouched with Photoshop and uploaded by User:Mariordo

A day out in Castlefield ……….. August 1980

The picture has sat for over 40 years in the collection in our cellar.

It will have been in early August and having followed the procession of vintage steam vehicles down to Castlefield I joined in the mix of people enjoying the day.

Location; Castlefield

Pictures; A day out in Castlefield, 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

It was the Age of Steam ...... and it was the passing of steam

Now if you want an example of one of those great divides, the steam locomotive must be up there at the top of the tree.

Down in the West country and travelling to Minehead

For my generation who grew up with steam power, there is still a magic to it, undimmed by the simple observation that I last travelled on one back in the summer of 1961 on my way home from a holiday with my grandparents in Derby.

For others the love affair will have lingered longer into the 1960s, but we lived in south east London and the Southern Region of British Railways along with the Underground ran their trains on electricity.

I know my father had the same romantic attachment to steam but not so mother, and there I think comes that divide, for she had a particularly jaundiced view of the steam locomotive.

It was borne from that simple accident of living near a railway line, and watching as the mix of smoke and hot specs of cinder played havoc with the washing on the line. At best it left the sheets, shirts and underwear looking grubby before they had even dried, and at worst the cinders burnt small holes in the material.

The Steam Expo, 1980, Manchester

And so mother’s response to my lament at the passing of the Age of Steam was a brusque “good riddance”.

I, with no such considerations, mourned the passing of the lot from the great sleek and powerful express locomotives to the dirty, unwashed and business like “shunters”.

Part of that divide I suspect is also because mother’s generation took them for granted, while I was only in my early 20s when they effectively disappeared along with countless little branch lines.

All of this I was reminded on when my friend Lois posted a short account of the steam train journey on her blog.*

She began “Yesterday we had a belated Father's Day celebration and went by steam train (yes a puffing Billy) from the little town of Bishops Lydeard to the seaside town of Minehead” and went on to reflect on steam journeys with her family waxing lyrical about the sounds and smells.

Like Lois, I remember them vividly and in particular late at night the noise from the sidings close to Nana’s house. In the still of the early morning, the sound of the shunting engine working the wagons, carried across the streets with the dull clunk of carriages banging together and the occasional whistle, coupled with the unmistakable surging noise of a loco getting up steam.

Rolling out the steam, 1981, Steam Cavalcade

Today apart from the static exhibits in museums, the joy of steam has to be experienced at one of the local preservation societies, some of which sprang up even as British Railways were planning which new batch of old locos to scrap.

These societies, often at first on a wing and prayer saved our heritage and now run both nostalgic excursions but also commercial ones on branch lines that closed long ago.

But there are also those steam events, which feature not just locomotives but also host of steam powered vehicles from traction engines to merrygorounds.

I find them pure heaven but I suspect mother would not be convinced.

Location; where ever there is a steam locomotive

Pictures; the steam loco that takes you from Bishops Lydeard to the seaside town of Minehead, 2018, courtesy of Lois Elsden, and a fine steam loco from the Steam Expo, 1980, and Steam Cavalcade, 1981, Manchester, from the collection of Andrew Simpson


*An Old Sort of Journey, Lois Elsden, https://loiselden.com/2018/06/19/an-old-sort-of-journey/