Yourself and Bob are much cherished in our booky world and I personally really appreciate everything that you do. Your words, like your reviews, bring books to life and give them a voice before the front cover is even turned. From this he moved on to become Head of Finance and Planning and then into Human Resource Management where he specialised in outsourcing to industry. Eight tons on the tender and if ‘cracked and stacked’ nearer nine: but they were driven like a Great Northern Atlantic, with a long cut-off and plenty of regulator and they thrived on such treatment and were quite economical. The locomotive is celebrating its 100th Birthday this year and we are delighted to welcome the world’s most famous steam locomotive back to the Bluebell Railway this summer.

The definitive story of this famous locomotive, based on the publication by Geoffrey Hughes but brought right up to date by Philip Benham with photographs selected by Chris Nettleton.

This highly anticipated journey hauled by a legend of the railway sets off with a sparkling Mimosa cocktail as you take to your comfortable armchair seat.

In 2004, its ongoing 40 years of fame finally earned it a place in the National Railway Museum collection and, after an unprecedented fundraising campaign and a National Heritage Memorial Fund grant, the museum was able to clear the enormous debts of the engine’s then owning company and acquire Flying Scotsman for the nation, and for a British public which clearly holds the engines in high esteem. He retired in 2011 to focus more fully on writing biographies and books related to military, aviation and engineering matters. In the meantime, you can still enjoy the Flying Scotsman VR Experience and our exhibition Flying Scotsman: 100 Years, 100 Voices at the museum. Their Electrification Engineer, Brian Davis, and our Breakdown Foreman, Syd Casselton, made a marvellously effective pair in charge throughout a hard and continuous weekend.While the name ‘Flying Scotsman’ is well known to many, the complete story of the train and its place in British social history has been untold until now.

The last straw would be the stop and restart at Finsbury Park and then, for me, a bus journey in the black-out with the elderly conductor punching the exact hole in the ticket to denote the Baker Street stage. Then again, what if Iris and her mother are invited to be passengers aboard the train on a speed record-breaking attempt to Edinburgh? It was briefly the only main line steam engine running in the whole of Britain, and it has travelled across the Atlantic and across America. However in 1934, it was the turn of 4472 ( see here) and its regular crew, Bill Sparshatt and fireman R. Yesterday a parent came over to tell me how impressed she was by the book fair and that you did a fabulous job of selling the books to the children first.No 1472 was the third of a class of steam locomotives that was eventually to number 79 engines, and did not originally even carry a name. But there was a big grate and the fireman would put on an enormous fire before starting, and he might well with good Welsh coal and economical working go halfway to Bristol without touching the fire.