I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love trains. For most of my life I have lived where I could hear trains passing by, and for at least half of my life I have lived where I could watch the trains go by. For most of my teens I lived on Hayling Island, in Hampshire, and I would see the Hayling Billy, a little steam train, pass by the house just a field away, between our house and the shore. It was close enough to smell the smoke, and you could walk right up to the tracks and stand within feet of it passing.

I actually got to take that train for part of my daily journey to school. The second half of the journey, for three years, was on the electrified Southern Railway from Havant to Fratton. I thought that all electrified railways had ‘third lines’ carrying the power, since it was all that I knew. When I first encountered overhead lines they seemed rather odd, and cumbersome. But that’s going on too far. To go back.

I know, because I have been told, that I travelled from London to Scotland by train with my mother during the Second World War. We had some kind of travel warrant, because we were going to stay a while with my mother’s cousin and her husband, who was stationed on the Isle of Arran. I think multiple lies had been told – that my Aunt was my mother’s sister for a start, but the main reason for the journey was my mother’s bereavement – my father had been killed in an air-raid. I do not remember the journey, but apparently I loved the train.

My first real memory of trains comes when I was about six years old and we lived in Portsmouth. Some summer Saturdays we would walk to Portsmouth and Southsea Station and get the train to Hayling Island. )Well, two trains – one to Havant and then the second from Havant to Hayling. If we were really lucky the ticket collector would be my Uncle Bob, actually my mother’s uncle, my grandmother’s brother. He had served the railways all his life, despite the handicap of a wooden leg which he had had since his late teens. It seemed very special to have him clip our tickets at the station – quite as special as the ride we knew was to come on the trains, and then the Gallopers near the beach at the fun fair. My mother’s friends husband, Uncle Mac, ran the Galloper, and we went several times for free! I really don’t know which I preferred of the three treats.