That Was the Year That Was – 1963

Presenter: Geoff Plumb

Meeting Held at Shenfield Parish Hall

Many of us are old enough to remember the year in question and fortunate enough to have savoured it. Geoff was only in his early teens; nevertheless he managed to capture a great many images of the last days of steam. Even though he did three paper rounds and worked at a local greengrocers, he couldn’t always afford colour film (we tend to forget how expensive it was back then) and so some of his presentation was in black & white, all good quality especially if compared to this reporter’s early efforts! Geoff has tried colourising some of the B&W pictures, something that seems to be catching on in the railway press. Like many of us, I guess, he received some ruined negatives back from the processors, which he had the foresight to keep and was able, years later to Photoshop almost back to normal.

Geoff was introduced to this hobby by his father Derek whilst very young in Sheffield and was able to travel on a good number of rail-tours run by the RCTS, LCGB, etc. So, some of the presentation was about these excursions, sometimes to exotic areas in brake-vans. One unfortunate trip involved West Country Bude, which the crew couldn’t get to steam. Other journeys were more successful. The family moved from South Yorkshire to the suburbs of London during his childhood and he was able to capture steam on the WCML, ECML, the Midland and WR not too far from home at places like Bushey troughs and Hadley Wood. He took us through the year which included visits to industrial sites north and south of the Thames in cement works and paper mills, with their fireless locos. A holiday in Wales was very fruitful, with mainline steam and preserved narrow gauge much in evidence, including a couple of pictures of Bill Hoole, who had moved from his exploits with SNG 60007 to the calmer waters of the Ffestiniog. There was also a brief visit to the Isle of Man. The year concluded with several last trips and we saw many veteran locos awaiting scrapping, or being dismantled, often in semi-derelict sheds and depots.

Geoff went on to a career in television as a cameraman.