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Comment... March 2012

January, February and March are good months for indoor model engineering exhibitions, steam society talks and slide shows in village halls across the country and a fair few of our heritage railways maintain a steam service during winter weekends.

Preparing the Events Guide (given free with this issue), does remind me though of longer warm days as I check over dates of rallies attended with fond memories. The daylight hours are already getting longer and thawing out and steaming up can’t be that far away.

With committees still adding the finishing details to events that are later in the year, don’t forget to get your copy of the April issue of Old Glory, which is on sale from March 15 and will include part two of the Events Guide – containing rallies and vintage events held from July until the end of the year. Place a regular order with your newsagent for your copy or, better still, subscribe and save money and never miss an issue.

It has not been a good month in other ways. The sad news at the passing of three ‘gentlemen of steam’ who were either around at the start of road steam preservation or who worked commercially with steam has hit us all hard. James Gilbey, Bill Love and Albert Fensom – names that are legends. Their families can be extremely proud of everything that these three gents did for us and the steam movement as a whole. They helped to set up successful steam societies that are still active today, and all have served as presidents, secretaries or in other high offices in their respective areas.

On the last two occasions that I met Albert Fensom, he was extremely interested in my job as editor of Old Glory – asking questions as to how we physically make up the magazine and how do we get such good reproduction of the photographs.

Asking Albert questions was secondary to him asking you questions.

As a ‘suvvener’ I’ve been following the ups and downs of the Medway Queen story for years, and the exciting news that it’s almost ready, hull-wise, to be towed (by sea) from Bristol back to its base on the Medway for fitting out is a big milestone in the rebuild story. It’s also good news from Shieldhall, which will be sailing again later this year, and even for little SS Robin, which has just received some lottery cash as it takes its place in the city alongside the likes of Cutty Sark and HMS Belfast.

However, Freshspring on the river Severn is now holed forward and needs urgent help to survive and there are plenty more like it. Next month, amid all the commemorations of the Titanic centenary, can we dare hope for a little more understanding of the perilous nature of our marine heritage from the powers that be?

Colin Tyson
Editor