DEBUTS GALORE AT RICHMOND!
For decades steam portables have been the forgotten part of the steam preservation movement and have been late to the party. In fact, in the 1960s, Alan Duke of the RLS supported by W S Love and some others, felt details of steam portables did not need recording, which caused quite a kerfuffle at the time, even with W S Love’s young son.
But attitudes have changed and they are very much part of the scene today with small portables in great demand, helped by many from South America and other parts of the globe coming back to the UK in container loads, particularly in the 1990s.
When I was looking for a small portable in the early 80s it was very difficult to find any but the late Bill Briggs successfully led me down a road that turned out to be very fruitful.
As I arrived on site all I could think about was my first experience of being taken to see a portable coupled up to a rack bench, not far from here, in 1956. Dad had collected me from Pembury hospital, where I was stationed for some months, in his gold column-change Standard Vanguard. On that
