760419

MONDAY 19th APRIL 1976

Minehead Station

9.50pm. Today was Bank Holiday and we went out for the day. We left at 10.00am and drove via Bridgwater to Kilve where we had coffee and a wholemeal scone at the Little Orchard [slide 08613.] Then we turned right off the main road, parked the car at Parkhouse Farm, and walked down to the sea. Here there was a stony beach and a little steam flowing into the sea. We were last here in 1957 when Freda’s father brought us during a brief holiday at Bridgwater. I took a photograph of Mr. Powley sitting on the stones and Freda took one of me by the stream. Today we both took photographs in the same place [slides 08614- 08615]

            After this we walked a little way over the fields, then drove on to Minehead which we had also last seen nineteen years ago. We found a parking place on The Strand and went to have lunch at the Strand Restaurant. We had an enjoyable meal of egg, chips and beans. Followed by yoghourt and a cup of tea for only £1.28. Behind the Restaurant was the Railway Station with four steam locomotives which I photographed [slides 08616-08619]. One, an ex-GWR 4-6-0 tank, bore no identifying marks, but an enthusiast told me it was 4561, due now for restoration by (I believe) the West Somerset Railway. There was also a locomotive named Vulcan which I was told came from the Austin works at Longbridge. [Slide 08618 shows a Bagnall 0-6-0T, either Vulcan or Victor departing Minehead station with the 2.35pm train to Williton.]

            We next crossed over the road and I photographed Freda sitting on the sea-wall where her father snapped us nineteen years ago [slide 08620]. Then we walked to the Harbour, looked inside the little quayside Church, St. Peter’s on the Quay, and walked on past the Lifeboat Station towards Greensleigh Point before retracing our steps to the car. It was now 2.30pm and we drove past Butlin’s Holiday Camp, then back along The Strand and through the town, heading for the Quantock Hills where we planned to spend the afternoon. On the way to Williton we turned off the main road to see Cleeve Abbey.

            It was a lovely sunny day and hot in the car, and we spent a rather frustrating hour seeking somewhere to have tea. We went to Nether Stowey, where earlier in the day we had looked in vain for a café, and drove through Quantock Forest to Crowcombe, then on the Taunton Road to Bishops Lydeard, and north again to either West or East Bagborough. (I am trying to retrace our steps on the Ordnance Survey map, Sheets 164 and 165.) We must then have driven down Merridge Hill, and Freda (as she told me later) had just prayed, “Lord, let us find somewhere”, when quite suddenly, at the junction of five roads, we found a petrol station and garden café. Here we had scones, jam and clotted cream and a pot of tea, sitting in the garden. While we were there a girl rider brought her horse in for a pail of water.

            After leaving the café we drove back a short distance the way we had come, and parked the car in some heathland where we had another short walk before sitting to read our books. Freda sat on a cushion on a fence-stump reading a Pan paperback, Springtime in Britain, a Journey Through the Land by Edwin Way Teale, while I sat in the car re-reading Oral Roberts’ Miracle of Seed-Faith. Eventually I dropped off to sleep.

            We left the heath at about 4.50pm and drove home via Enmore, Durleigh and Bridgwater, arriving at 6.23pm. This evening we have been watching TV, Dad’s Army (a 1971 film) which was not very good, and Coronation Street on video. We are now watching a repeat of the concert we listened to and saw on New Year’s Day from Vienna. I am also videotaping it.

2994 Vulcan and 2996 Victor arrived from British Leyland’s Longbridge works on Friday 23 November 1973. The Bagnall 0-6-0 saddle tanks were diesel-hauled to Taunton (WSR Journal No. 64 Autumn 1993, page 20. The same issue reports the departure of Hudswell-Clarke 0-6-0T Jennifer from the WSR on Friday 16 July 1993, page 28.)

            There were three Bagnall saddle tanks, 2994, 2995 and 2996. Built in 1950 for the Steel Company of Wales, they were withdrawn from service seven years later. 2994 and 2996 were subsequently purchased by Austin Motors for their Longbridge Works. 2995 was acquired by the National Coal Board and ultimately scrapped in 1975.

            Although we did not know it at the time, our visit to Minehead Station took place only 24 days after the re-opening on Sunday 28th March 1976 of 3¼ miles of track as far as Dunster and Blue Anchor. This was under the auspices of the new West Somerset Railway Association. The entire line from Taunton to Minehead had been closed – under the Beeching Act – since Saturday 2nd January 1971.

            Later in 1976 the line was re-opened as far as Williton, and in September filming began at Minehead Station of Southern TV’s children’s serial The Flockton Flyer featuring GWR 0-6-0 pannier tank 6412. The first of six episodes was shown on Monday 18th April 1977 and a second series was filmed later that year, transmission beginning on Monday 9th January 1978. On Saturday 9th June 1979 the line was reopened to Bishops Lydeard.

            Minehead Station also features (as Paddington) in the Beatles’ first film A Hard Day’s Night (1965), in the “Scottish Dancing” episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em (BBC 1978), in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (BBC 1978), and in The House of Eliott (BBC 1991-93).