Back in the late 1950s, when I was a wee lad of seven or eight years old, my Dad would occasionally take me up to Truro Station on Saturday mornings to spend an hour or so watching the trains, all still steam then, of course.
There was a “magic” machine on Platform Two which had a dial with which I could spell out my name and then have it printed on a metal strip.
But the real magic came one morning – or rather, promised to come – when a local tank engine involved in shunting operations pulled in alongside that platform and Dad and I got chatting with the driver.
“Come back next week,” said the ever-so-friendly driver, “and you can join me on the footplate and we’ll go for a little ride.”
Well now, I ask you, what is it that every little boy wants to do when he grows up?
Exactly – be an engine driver. So this, the next best thing, had me walking on air as we left the station that morning.
Alas, Dad quietly cautioned me on the way home: “Don’t get too excited, old son; he just might not be there next Saturday.”
And my Old Man was right – he wasn’t. Cue tears.
Fast-forward 60-plus years and this little boy (because we never really grow up, do we?) is now 70 years old and cherishing the great birthday presents his family have given him.
One of them, from daughter Lisa and son-in-law Greg, is . . . a ride on a steam engine, would you believe.
Yes, the real thing, guaranteed - a voucher for a steam footplate ride on the Helston Railway next summer, no less. I will even be “driving” it; apparently, I will get to do things like shovel in the coal and pull the whistle (repeatedly, no doubt).
Members of my family will be among the passengers in the train. Just as well, perhaps, that I’ll be out of their sight for most of the time – the grin on my face, I am certain, will be like nothing they’ve ever seen before!
