num_pages: 140
description: A Trainspotter in the Swinging SixtiesThis is a story of steam. A story of one person’s rite of passage - mine.It is a chronicle of personal change in the rapidly changing world that was the sixties. Society was imploding, and the music scene reflected the dynamism of the age. It is also a cautionary tale of the inevitability of disappointment in the face of change. The demise of steam was to be my first serious lesson about growing up. Namely, I learnt that life would consist of a series of endings. Of course there would be beginnings, but they tended to be less clear cut, and not so apparent at the time, whereas it is the endings that clearly mark off periods in our lives. If the Beatles were the soundtrack of my formative years, then steam engines were the back cloth of the stage upon which I strutted, sometimes as conquering hero, and sometimes as clown, but never defeated until the curtain finally came down in August 1968.Don’t expect glossy colour images of crack expresses hauling pristine trains through scenic vistas. They belong in fairy tale books. This is a narrative painted in monochrome, in the grime and lime streaked boilers of the hard worked locomotives that eked out their existence in the final years of steam on British Railways. Steam was dead. Long live steam.Phil Mathison
language: English
title: Shed Bashing with The Beatles
publisher: Dead Good Publications