My annual pilgrimage!

Call me an anorak if you wish but I just love steam trains! I'm old enough to have have used them regularly when I was a schoolboy. I used to catch the 8.35 from Barlaston Station to school at Newcastle. Yes, that was in the days when Newcastle had a railway station. No trace now of course - the D road obliterated the line completely and the station site opposite the Borough Arms Hotel now forms part of the walk through the gardens to Queen Street. And Barlaston station is no more, either.

The largest loco - 70000 Britannia

So whenever I have the chance I always try to get down to Minehead for the West Somerset Spring Steam Gala. And Janet takes advantage of my trip to go and see her girls in Dartmouth. So we were up at the crack of dawn on Friday and made good progress down the M5 to Taunton. There Jan dropped me off at the bus station and, using my bus pass (one of the advantages of age!) I enjoyed a delightful  bus journey through the beautiful countryside of North Somerset to Minehead. I saw so much more than if I had been driving a car.

And the smallest !

I then spent the rest of the weekend hopping on and off steams trains. Wonderful! The West Somerset Railway is a proper railway - over twenty miles long and eight stations. Apart from a handful of paid employees, the whole operation is run by volunteers - over 600 of them. I've been a member for several years and just wished I lived nearer. If I did, you'd never see me! I'd be there with my sleeves rolled up at every opportunity!

But the weekend brought home to me just how important leisure and tourism is to the local economy of towns like Minehead. Every hotel, guest house and B&B was full; restaurants and pubs were doing a roaring trade and, due to the brilliant weather, the ice cream stalls all had long queues. I had a conversation with a local who was of the opinion that without the visitors to the railway the town would have gone out of business years ago. We've no similar attraction in Stone but we must must make the most of what we've got to attract the tourist pound. Which make our Farmers' Market and our Festivals all the more important.