Train times

IT MAY not perhaps be said that Kirkby Stephen East is Keith Richardson's station in life, though he remains awfully fond of the place. Life's turntable, rather, has brought him round full circle.

He was born in that little town in what then was Westmoreland, for much of his childhood could watch the sheds and sidings from the living room window - "I spent many happy hours on the window ledge" - has returned north to help with the station's imaginative restoration

Its chief attraction, however, was always that it wasn't Kirkby Stephen West, the station just a mile up the road but never the twin would meet. He was an Eastender, and proud of it.

"Kirkby Stephen West was London Midland," he says, with a little grimace, like one of Alastair Sim's. "I was an LNER man, through and through."

Now 73, his first book - "certainly my last, I suspect" - tells not just the story of the station and the 150 men who worked from there but of the oft-snowbound Stainmore railway on which resolutely it stood. "I hope it will appeal to far more than just railway buffs," he says.

The line ran from Darlington through Barnard Castle to Tebay and Penrith, Stainmore summit 1,370 ft above the sea. The fearfully fragile looking Belah viaduct, near which he'd spend farmhouse holidays, was 200ft high and 1,040ft long.

Now the Stainmore Railway Company, to which Keith belongs, is actively pursuing plans to restore the station to its 1950s glory - a first train is expected to run next year.

In time they hope to restore as much of the Stainmore route "as is reasonably practicable".

Keith used the line for five years to get to Appleby Grammar School, regretted that the blizzards rarely closed the line west of Kirkby Stephen - "I think we only missed about three days" - though the stretch between Kirkby Stephen and Bowes could be snowbound for weeks on end.

His cuttings include one from The Northern Echo, April 1, 1947, of the first train through Barras station since February 3 the same year - and not much room for manoeuvre then, either.

"Basically they were really well prepared for snow, not like in the south where there could be a few flakes and things were near-paralysed.

"They'd employ local men on a casual basis on a Sunday to help clear the line but it was a bit futile, really, because by the Monday it had all blown back in again."

He became a bored junior clerk at Kirby Thore, happy when National Service called him away. "There was no business at the station, you just had to be there.

"The line was run down, and with no attempt to promote it, though I'm not saying there'd have been many more passengers if they had."

After the army he worked in flight simulation, a career which took off without his ever leaving the ground. Now he lives in Finghall, between Bedale and Leyburn: the restored Wensleydale Railway ambling down the hill.

The book also provides a social history of the Kirkby Stephen area, taking two and a half years to write. "I suddenly decided to stop," says Keith. "I could have gone on for ever."

His only problem, uncommon among authors, is that he'd rather not have the attendant publicity. There's a book signing in Kirkby Stephen on Saturday - "I'm dreading it," he says.

The book, vividly and imaginatively illustrated, has contributions from several men who worked on the line - Belah signalman Vernon Pearson remembers drifts 45ft deep in the cutting - and also recalls the special trains which served the huge Band of Hope "demonstrations" at Appleby and Kirkby Stephen.

"It was a bit like a mini-Durham Big Meeting," he writes, "but without any alcohol, of course."

Though never in the timetable, there were also fortnightly special trains from Durham and Bishop Auckland to the miners' convalescent home at Conishead Priory, near Ulverston - "a fabulous place," says Keith, "goodness knows what the miners from their tiny cottages made of it all."

The line closed to passengers in January 1962, Kirkby Stephen band belatedly playing Fight the Good Fight and hundreds on the platform for the wake. "It was an absolute tragedy for the town," he says. The last goods train ran 12 years later.

Restoration progresses enthusiastically and apace, all profits from Keith's informative and hugely enjoyable 226-page book towards the appeal. He'll be signing copies in the book shop in Kirkby Stephen market place from 10.30-noon on Saturday.

Kirkby Stephen East: A Station Remembered, costs £8.95, or £10 including postage from the Stainmore Railway Company. Manor Cottage, 1 West End, Sedgefield, Co Durham, RS21 2BW.

New model army

GAUGING interest, as it were, we joined the train set last weekend at the Hartlepool Model Railway exhibition. The location, Manor College of Technology, seemed pretty appropriate - these things are far more than child's play these days.

The buzz-phrase is digital control command, a bit like trying to work a television set for those who haven't the remotest.

They talk of diamond decoders and software upgrade facilities, of frog polarity and of being bi-direction compatible. There's even something called a dither control, presumably for those who don't know if they're coming or going.

The more obvious benefits are remarkably realistic sound effects, flickering fireboxes - where periodically appropriate - and direct links between the footplate and the operator, or his computer.

One engine even seemed to be smoking in the station - either that, or the driver was having a surreptitious ciggie out the back.

Almost all the visitors were male, mostly getting on a bit, some apparently able to remember not just the age of steam but the Stockton and Darlington, an' all. The 1,700 weekend attendance was more than twice the previous year's, proceeds to the college.

Many call the hobby therapeutic, which perhaps was just as well for Malcolm Priestman, the organiser, who in helping set things up two days previously had dropped a load of wood on his bad leg and ended up in A&E.

Model patient? "I wasn't very happy," said Malcolm, miserably.

There were models depicting locations from Austria to Australia, from Marske to Morpeth. Wotsup Dock was sadly said to be fictional, as was Oldham King Street - another pity since they could instead have used Oldham Mumps, that most catching of genuine station names.

The chap who'd built the working model of Rosebud, Montana, was a pilot with KLM but had never landed on Rosebud.

The lads from Darlington Model Railway Society had the beginnings of their new project, provisionally called Quaker Lane, conceived two years ago and still around eight years from completion.

This was the "heritage" diesel and electric group, their present interest in what they call diesel's "blue period" - as opposed to the present red and yellow - of the 1980s.

When complete, they hope it will replicate an urban permanent-way yard with a main line through it - a bit like Ferryhill, they suppose, with locos which would have been based at Gateshead or Thornaby.

They already have British Rail working timetables from the period and will run meticulously accordingly. Minute detail, second timing.

Darlington member Dave Carnelly supposed it all a bit obsessive - "ask my other half" - but great escapism, too. "People try to say that digital control command is straightforward, but it's not all that easy.

"There's a good social side, too. I wouldn't say it was competitive, but there's plenty of envy when you see other people's lay-outs."

He began with good old Hornby. "I suspect that 99 per cent of the people here did. We may have moved on, but never really grew up."

His mate Andrew Bower knew the feeling. "You have to be careful you don't get carried away," he said.

Scores leant against the crush barriers, eyeing detail, cherishing little cameos. All seemed to be enjoying the occasion. Model railways no longer run like clockwork, of course. It's much more efficient than that.

Andrea, the church's saviour

HUNDREDS overflowed Andrea Savino's funeral at Shildon Methodist church on Tuesday, the polliss on traffic control, Andrea's restaurant across the road no less flower-bedecked.

The Rev Ian Prudom talked of a unique personality and a unique contribution to the community, but what few of us knew was that it was Andrea - Sorrento to Shildon - who'd saved the church from being burned down.

"He'd seen smoke, thought it was a candle, investigated and called the fire brigade," said Mr Prudom. "It was youngsters up to no good. Andrea averted a calamity."

He left, we left, to applause and to the sound of Italian singing. If it translated into "For he's a jolly good fellow", it could never have been more appropriate.

Tuesday's Eating Owt column said that the maiden name of Andrea's first wife Marilyn, who died in 1987, was Ramsey. It wasn't, it was Simpson - my memory reprehensibly at fault. Apologies to those upset by the error - and thanks to all those who pointed it out.

IN a bus queue in the rain, we bump into the remarkable Albert Hill, 85 next, who's just had his 43rd wild western novel accepted for publication. Still speaking to schools in Hartlepool, who pick him up from his home in Darlington, he no longer gives talks in Sunderland. "That old heap of mine's no longer up to motorway travel," says Albert, and then pauses. "Or maybe," he adds, "that's just me."

ALL manner of folk, even the chap on the last bus home, responded to last week's column from the Shetland Islands.

They included 83-year-old former RAF man Stan Overend from Seaburn, Sunderland, who was stationed up there in the war - and remembers the Shetland Bus - and Terry Wansbury from Newton Aycliffe who helped build Haroldswick Methodist church, Britain's most northerly, in 1992.

John Heslop in Durham saw on television last week an appeal for a family to settle on the Shetland island of Fetlar, where just three of the population of 58 are primary school-age children. Unless reinforcements arrive, the school will close in 2010.

What Fetlar? The One Show has more information.

FOR opening Sadberge Village Festival a few weeks back, we should have received a tray of Taylor's legendary pork pies. Unfortunately the factory, like much else around Darlington that weekend, was flooded. Last week, however, two dozen arrived piping hot at the office. On the grounds that every cloud has a silver lining, 23 colleagues would like to express their gratitude.

... and finally, we had the pleasure on Monday evening of addressing Wensleydale Rotary Club, in Leyburn. "Are you from't Darlington, then?" they enquired - t'Darlington being local shorthand for the revered Darlington & Stockton Times - and were clearly disappointed at being informed otherwise. It was a disappointment which never dissipated all evening.