Life was generally good at Ian Allan Ltd in the 1960s. We - Alan Williams and David Percival and myself - formed a close-knit team on Model Railway Constructor.
Our immediate boss was Editorial Director, Geoffrey Freeman Allen, son of the famous Cecil J Allen. The Allans and the Allens were not related but their close involvement in the same company inevitably caused confusion.
Cecil J Allen was, at that time, the leading authority on train timing and train operation and was a regular magazine contributor and author, although he wasn’t directly employed by the company. His articles on train performance were referred to by those of us on the magazine editorial teams as ‘the racing pages’. I used to have to proof-read them but, beyond that, they simply did not interest me and to this day, they never have.
‘Cecil J’ was straight-laced in the extreme. There was a popular story when hp was timing the record-breaking 114mph ‘Coronation’ run in 1937. He was in the restaurant car and during the run - probably during the infamous approach to Crewe - some crockery had been spilled. The attendant had uttered an expletive and Cecil J allegedly made a formal complaint.
But if Allen senior was ‘starchy’, his son, known to us all as ‘Geefa’, was positively unapproachable.
It was
