The Warp

Our journey out

Our journey out into the world was on the Leominster to Bromyard line and it was once, travelling on that line, that the dense undergrowth that grew along the track parted to show me what seemed a fabled place, Hatfield Court, with the trim lawns and ordered flowerbeds up on its hill amid parkland and gardens at that time devoid of the blemish of any weed, lived in, I later learned, by Colonel Chambers.

Was there any premonition to tell me that this place would one day be my home?

Travelling back home by night on that same Leominster to Bromyard line, arriving at a remote station platform, I remember the porters who walked down the platform with softly glimmering lanterns, reciting a litany of the places the train was going to call at.

An advertisement from that time, for cheap day tickets on our local lines, is written in poetry; ‘Green Bank Halt ... Hodnet ... Horsehay and Dawley ... Ketley ... Lightmoor Platform ... Longdon Halt ... Longville ... Market Drayton ... Much Wenlock ... New Dale Halt ... New Hadley Halt ... Oakengates ... Peplow ... Presthorpe ... Rowton Halt ... Shifnal ... Shrewsbury ... Tern Hill ... Upton Magna ... Walcot ... Westwood Halt ... Wollerton Halt ... Wolverhampton.’

Jeremy Sandford FanClub Archives
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