An editorial holiday this month! Instead we have a classic photograph by John Spencer Gilks which looks forward to our ‘Pendragon moving forward to take water having just arrived with the 3.25pm from Ryde Pier Head. The station’s presence is announced by a Southern Railway sign probably dating from before the war, when the Island’s railway system was more extensive. For example, the line from Sandown to Newport had closed in 1956, those to Bembridge and Freshwater three years earlier. But still, this was where the journey to London began, via the ferry from Ryde to Portsmouth. In the background is the tunnel under St. Boniface Down carrying the railway on to Shanklin, Sandown and Ryde. Period cars are parked in the station forecourt and there is a familiar telephone box from which arriving passengers could report their arrival and ask to be collected – or request a local taxi!
