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Published on 1 Comment on A Sense of Time and Place…
by John Clayson

Do you sometimes have one of those moments which takes you back to a place and a time long ago, and it feels as if it was just yesterday?  Watching the first part of the series The Trial of Christine Keeler on BBC1 last night took me back to Grantham station (where else?!) on 3rd October 1963 and a photograph my Dad took during one of our outings there.  It's 4.05pm (by the clock on the wall) and at first sight it's a simple study of a man in the down side buffet reading his newspaper, probably the London Evening Standard.

The location is long gone.  The building which housed the buffet on the down side was swept away when that side of the station was rebuilt in 1985-86.  In fact it had almost been swept away 30 or so years earlier, when a 'hard shunt' into the bay platform (now platform 3, then platform 4) forced a coach over the buffers and into the north wall of the buffet in June 1954.

...but I digress, as dear Ronnie Corbett might have said.  The connection becomes clear on reading the front page headlines:  MISSING CHRISTINE WITNESS MYSTERY 'Paul Mann has no plans to return' and ‘LUCKY’ GORDON IN BOX TODAY, accompanied by a photograph of Mandy Rice-Davies.

Photograph taken by Cedric Clayson.

The enquiry report by Lord Denning into 'The Profumo Affair’ had been published in September.  Christine Keeler's trial, in which she was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice, had just commenced.

I do remember, at the age of 9, wondering what all the fuss was about, and my parents changing the subject when I persisted with enquiring what 'a call-girl' was!

In search of the real Christine Keeler, focussing on this new portrayal of the scandal by screenwriter and novelist Amanda Coe, is on the BBC website here.

Published on

We introduce the crew, their O2 locomotive and a short but intensively used section of the East Coast Main Line as we ride on the footplate with Colin Walker between Grantham South and Highdyke.  Travel back to a winter's day in the early 1960s to join them on our latest new page here.

Published on Leave a comment on More railways rediscovered: the High Dyke Branch

Need to shake off the winter blues?

Why not rediscover the High Dyke Branch!

Surely, following our recent spell of Siberian weather, spring will soon be in the air.  If you fancy getting out and about while rediscovering some railway heritage let our new page, The High Dyke Branch Rediscovered - Part 1, be your guide.

John Pegg will show you the first 3 miles of the former branch line, from Highdyke Junction to the Great North Road near Colsterworth.  There's a great selection of photographs .  Most show scenes taken in summer 2017 but, mixed in, are some 'flashbacks' to the 1960s and the early 1970s when the line was still moving heavy loads of ironstone to the main line, the job it was built for in 1916-19.

So why not find your boots, burn off a few excess calories and clear away the cobwebs?

...and look out for Part 2 soon.

Published on Leave a comment on Stoke signal box

For our latest new page we move to one of the boundaries of the Tracks through Grantham 'sphere of interest' in terms of railway geography and infrastructure.

'Stoke Bank' is a legendary location, comprehensively written into East Coast Main Line history as one of the world's most renowned railway racing stretches where speed records have been made and broken.

But what about the signal box at the start of the descent (or, equally, at the summit of the ascent from both directions)?  Many a train timer's stopwatch has clicked there, but few travellers spared much of a thought for the men on duty at Stoke box as they sped past.  Many a loco crew, short of steam on a poor engine, have been thankful when the gradient changed from adverse to favourable as they exchanged a wave with the signalman at the isolated outpost.

Derek Steptoe's evocative memories of the box introduce a fine selection of photographs by Mike Mather and Noel Ingram.

Published on Leave a comment on A new gallery of photographs

We're sure you will enjoy the latest addition to Tracks through Grantham.  It's a fascinating and evocative collection of photographs taken by Humphrey Platts, who moved to Grantham in the autumn of 1949.  He soon made his way to the station to follow his interest in railways and his hobby of photography.  The first selection of Humphrey's pictures appears here, and more will be added in the coming weeks.

John Clayson