Pacifies on the ECML follow the 'pleasant and fun days' of firing on a rural line in the BR era

THE"pleasant and fun days" offiring locomotives on the bucolic Colne Valley line in rural Essex in the 1950s have been recalled by Sid Chase, following the article in issue 267 of Heritage Railway about the memorabilia from the line in the railwayana collection of artist Malcolm Root.

Sid, who is 82 and now lives in Australia, had railways in his blood from birth. His grandfather, father, and three uncles all worked for the LNER in and around Stratford, and he was born in the station