This is probably the first engine photo I took. The engine is 6019 King Henry V and it was withdrawn from service two months later and scrapped shortly after. I must have seen all the GWR Kings having been pulled by them throughout the 1950s on visits to and from my grandparents in Bristol. Before the train left my father would take me along the platform to "see the engine", but I was too anxious the train would leave without us to really take in these, the greatest of Great Western locomotives

On my first engine-photographing expedition I had yet to fully wake up to the qualities of steam. I was much more taken with the super-modern-looking 'Western' class diesels and Blue Pullmans

Another Britannia, another Black 5. The line ran by Pinner Road Junior School and there was another train went through during school dinners. Sound of engine approaching, all the spotters stand up, all the dinner ladies shout "sit down!", spotters bob a little, dinner ladies shout louder, spotters bob some more, dinner ladies shout louder still, train goes by, spotters shoot up to maximum height, dinner ladies bellow, spotters subside satisfied