If you could...

Is that the more fashionable end of The Potteries?

Tom

 

Is there a fashionable end of the Potteries?

 

Where the buildings only have one smashed window.

 

I thought the potteries came to a fashionable end in the 1930's.

 

PMSL!

 

I would like to see a streamlined Duchess running and a replica K2 for the West Highland Line so I would go back to last Friday having memorised that evening's winning Euro Millions numbers. On Monday I would be on the phone to the NRM!

 

I reckon you'll see the former within 10 years, too many people want to see Hamilton let loose for it to be put off for too long.

 

A weekend it is- I'll bring the oatcakes for snappin

Jon

 

Good call Feller, gorrer av' summ snap....

OK, time for a (slightly embarrassing) personal confession - in all the years that I have been spending time in Staffycher, I have never eaten an Oatcake. (For those benighted souls who have no idea what I'm on about, an Oatcake is the local, ahem, well-known delicacy, for which Staffycher is "famous".

I therefore resolve, solemnly, to have an Oatcake at the next practicable opportunity. I will report back on this personal adventure....

 

Light heartedly; go back to 1829 and wagering a considerable sum that "Rocket" will wing the Rainhill trials.
More seriously; inform the authors of the Modernisation Plan that oil will not remain cheap and that Britain has large stocks of coal. Therefore forget diesels and go straight o electrification.
Most serious point. Inform Dr Beeching that although "this line" currently does not make a profit, it's a useful cross country link and therefore not just used by locals. Also do not close "that station" as a new town is about to be built there and it'll be needed.

 

Mr Marples (Senior) to get an attack of the mumps in 1906........................

 

And at the same time arrange for Mr Beeching Senior to have a vasectomy so ensuring there would be no Doctor richard Beeching,

 

If it wasn't Beeching it would have been A. Nother.

 

Climbing Upton Scudamore Bank behind a Crompton then to the Isle of Wight on the Southsea

Dawlish behind a Peak at the height of summer

But to be in the engines of Manxman again, watch those pressures rise and fall as I turned the handwheels.........

 

Just funt this and I av ter say, thee astner lived, youth.

Get theesen ter High Lane Oatcakes, between Smo'th'ne rindabite an' Chell and get theesen half a dozen warm.

Get back 'om an' spread one ite, slice a birrer mousetrap on it an' either bung it under the grill or the michaelwave for 60 seconds. Pepper an' sauce of choice, an' a birrer streaky if thees got sum, then roll it up an' troff.

Best use a knife and fork cos it'll be forkin' hot.

T'other main use is with brekuss, when thee folds it up and dips it in the bacon fat, bean juice, termater juice, or worrever, instead of bread.

Happiness is!

A Staffordshire oatcake is a pancake made with oatmeal flour, so that it is savoury rather than sweet and they were made in vast quantities in oatcake shops all over Stoke - on - Trent and through Staffordshire. You can watch them being made on flat griddle plates over gas burners, then stacked, in dozens, in greaseproof paper.

The shops have moved with the times and now sell oatcakes, rolled with fillings, eg. cheese, bacon, mushrooms, any combinations. There are not so many shops as there were, but the ones that are left tend to be pretty good.

High Lane Oatcakes, between Smallthorne roundabout and Chell is definitely one of the best and will despatch vacuum - sealed packs by post. A mate of mine, an ex - Stoke (5D) fireman, brings me a dozen when he comes to have a day on the footplate with me. They last an indecently short time.

Which brings me back to: I'll have some of that tour round the Loop Line and the Biddulph Valley. Put me down for a ticket!

Regards,

jtx

 

One day would not be anywhere near enough but I'd choose a fine late Spring day in 1962 and spend it on the Helston-Gwinear Road branch, building in times on the platform at the junction to watch the main line steam and diesel hydraulics calling and/or passing thorugh. If I could have longer, I'd whip down to Penzance, walk back to Marazion past Long Rock shed and then scoot up to Bodmin Road for a trip to Padstow and back.

 

I'd recreate my grandfather's journey (I think in Southern Railway days, but am not sure) from Plymouth to Barnstaple, changing at Halwill Junction and, I assume, Torrington. Timetable permitting, I'd probably break off part way for a wee trip through over the North Cornwall to Padstow.

 

If you wanted too get to Padstow reasonably quickly then the GWR Bodmin Road route was the better. The old SR way via Halwill was a real 'slow boat to China' affair.
Oatcakes are also made in Derbyshire - Ashbourne was a good place for them. maybe still is. I dare not enter the "which are best" arena.

 

I envy you your first hand memories. However, you suggest I might have been in a hurry. I know my grandfather was not...

 

Only in the potteries could railway aficionados be graced with a street called Sidings Place. Beats Hancock's 23 Railway Cuttings!