Childhood Memories

An afternoon hacking back the vegetation in the garden set me off reminiscing about childhood trips to the FR.

John Firth

What did it was the wheelbarrow.

We didn’t have a wheelbarrow at home - the garden wasn’t big enough - but my grandmother, who lived on the Cambrian Coast, did - and every autumn half term I’d be allowed to join Himself on a trip to Wales to ‘megabash’ the garden, to borrow an FR term.

I got the job of disposing the clippings with the barrow while Himself handled the secateurs!

An incentive to get the job done in good time was the promise of a trip to Porthmadog to visit the model shop at Harbour Station and perhaps see a train.

Being the shoulder season this was usually one of the Ladies, or perhaps even Prince, on a shortened rake.

These were the days of all over red carriages and the restoration of services to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

It ought to be remembered as one of the high points of the railway’s history, instead it appears to be the era which dare not speak its name - something to be ashamed of.

You can visit the FR today and see every significant era represented and celebrated, except the 70s and 80s.

So much of it has been stuffed into storage or sold off.

It saddens me to see my childhood being denied in this way.