MEMORIES 213 asked for information about the day in 1953 when a circus train pulled in to Elvet station in Durham City. The station, at the end of the line from Sunderland, had closed to passenger traffic on January 1, 1931, but remained open as the city’s goods station.

Plus, on one day a year, it re-opened to passengers, thousands of miners and their families on special excursion trains to the city for the Miners Gala, which was held nearby on the racecourse.

Elvet closed to everything – goods and miners – on January 11, 1954. But in its last months a circus train is said to have used it – such a colourful image that a piece of music about the day has been commissioned for this year’s Brass festival, with words by poet Ian McMillan.

The big question, though, is did it really happen? Did a train full of clowns, conjurors, lions and tigers really arrive at Elvet, or was it just an apocryphal story?

Carol Rolling of Carrville, Durham, pulls a rabbit from the hat with her recollection from about 1953. She says: “Your article train brought back a vivid memory of a day long ago which brought great excitement to the pupils of Durham Girls Grammar School, which is the present day Gilesgate sixth form centre.

“Most classroom windows overlooked Providence Row and it only took one glance from one girl to have the whole school absolutely gobsmacked by what they saw: a very long string of elephants walking in single file with each one holding the tail if the one in front in their trunk.

“This was not the sort of scene we expected to see in Durham City!

“I’m not sure how many elephants there were, but there must have been at least 15, all of different sizes, making their way to The Sands, just beyond our school for the annual circus held each Easter.

“I remember that the circus that year was the very famous Chipperfield’s Circus – probably the best circus ever to come to Durham.

“I never knew why the elephants walked past the school to The Sands but if they had arrived in Durham by train, it now makes perfect sense!”

After 60 years, everything falls into place. Or could Carol, bored by double maths, just have been daydreaming that a parade of elephants had just walked by her classroom? Can you provide any further clues?