GRUMPY SISTERS' INK

Monday First, a bit if history. When we were little, our holidays were usually spent at home. We would run a bit wild, walk up to the dew ponds with a Jam jar for the newts, look for golf balls on the golf links, build bivvies in the copses, skate board using big books and a single roller skate, take the bus to the beach. In the summer though, we would often get a railway runabout ticket which gave us cheap fares on all the railways in the south east district. This was a great way to see the countryside and visit other coastal areas. The BEST thing was the journey. Trains that were real trains, corridor carriages, first second and third class carriages, pulled by steam engines. great denizens of steam, heaving and steaming, puffing and screaming through the countryside. We would stand on the station as close as we dare when the express came in so that we would be rocked with the force if the wind as it thundered through and enveloped us in steam. One the train we would wander the corridors or sit with our noses glued to the windows But usually we would be found with our heads outside the sash windows eyes smarting with the window and the smuts from the steam engine, buffeted by the wind, and watching the fields and trees flash past. Well, nostlgia reigned as we boarded the North York Moors Railway. The station was rendered in the the old days too. We were a it disappointed that' we were being pulled by a Diesel engine, but once we got going, the traditional clicketty clack of the railway track made up for it. Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And here is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever! R L Stevenson We traVeled up to Goathland and got off the train there. This was a station used for the Harry Potter first movie as the Hogwarts station. Once we had revived ourselves with. Cup of coffee(served in a paper cup, not good old thick British railway crockery) we set off for Grosmount,walking up the old railway line. The pathway was well benched and the way pretty, through fields and past cottages, following the old railway line, with remnants of houses and stations,bridges and walls along the way. And luckily we were in a good photographic spot when the train came steaming across the fields. At Grosmount, we had watched as trains shunted themselves around. There were the Pullman coaches, looking extremely elegant, one carriage had arms chairs and sofas and there e fine furniture in it, must have been for the Royals! The trains were being washed down too, great to see so much domestic activity. After a bit to eat we boarded the train and great!! It was a steam engine! So guess where M and I were for most of the journey? Heads out the window, smuts in the eyes, wind in the hair! Lovely!! The guards, who would have told us off as children, just smiled indulgently.