All Steamed Up
As soon as we heard that the steam train was a goner in England we all (at least those with suspicious minds) knew that there would be a spate of nostalgic literature to deal with. The engine drivers were saying to one another, 'After us the deluge'—and sure enough the deluge is upon us—a downpour of books bewailing (to quote the publisher's blurb) 'the passing of the great steam locomotives which have proudly thundered their way across the English countryside.'
Now I have had a weakness for nostalgic literature ever since, at a very early age, a school- master read us a poem he had written which began :
I lament the passing of Chinese lanterns And all things brittle and all things gay
and which seemed to have an infinite sadness about it that was quite overwhelming. The great thing about such elegies is that they should be the expression of a very personal feeling and that of a thoroughly sympathetic character. Such a person is Canon Roger Lloyd, who writes charmingly, enthusiastically and at the same time realistically about steam. He doesn't waste too much space trying to push back the waves, hints that there will be a good deal of fascination to be had from diesel and electric trains (since exactly the same time and motion jigsaw puzzles will have to be solved over them as have always been completed for steam) and is altogether so gentle an aficionado as both to please other sleeper-struck characters and not to alienate the efficiency boys. His expertise is of the 'it's-an- extraordinary-thing-you-know-but' variety, and the most hardened bus-traveller will be fas- cinated by his account of the administrative repercussions of a railway disaster.
It is difficult for the ordinary mortal to appre- ciate the other two books on this list. They are more likely to come up in the postprandial speeches at a Railway Club lunch somewhere on the move between Swindon and Didcot. I am sure, though, that if style and presentation go for anything in those surroundings they will be men- tioned, even waved, with approval. As for their authority, I am told by experts that the very names of Messrs. Hamilton Ellis and Nock are enough to terrify the enthusiast into awed silence
(an almost impossible job). DAVID WATT
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