A Bi' o' British Nostalgia

Jacqueline Winspear, the author of the Maisie Dobbs period-detective series of books, has a website (who doesn't, these days?) with information about her books and career, and so on.

The site also also contains some charming little essays. One, beautifully written, is about a nostalgic trip to the rural county of Kent, in South-East England, where Winspear grew up, and a ride on the lovingly-preserved Kent & East Sussex Railway, hailed by its supporters as "the country’s finest example of a rural light railway".

Here's an extract from Jacqueline Winspear's essay:

"He's seen me, he's seen me!" I'd squeal.

"I was no more than a toddler at the time, but I remember it clearly, remember the waft of smoky steam pressing up through the trees, the kerCHUFF-kerCHUFF of the engine, and the driver's smile as he leaned out to acknowledge me. And that whistle really was for me, because the drivers knew who was who along the branch line. We arrived at the station in Hartley late one day, my parents running to the platform only to see the back of the last carriage as it pulled out. But the driver had looked around at just the right moment and seen us, so drew his engine to a steaming halt and shunted the carriages back again so that we could climb aboard. That was in the days when a guard would walk ahead of the train to the first level crossing at Bishops Lane, to close the gates so that the train could pass safely. Not that there was much traffic on Bishop's Lane. The odd tractor, perhaps the farmer's old Morris, Fred Cooke delivering groceries, or the doctor on his rounds. And that was on a busy day.”

You can read the rest of the yarn, here.