Category Archives: This sceptred isle

Feeling a need for a blood sugar boost, I went into a newsagent and bought a bag of Crawford’s Cheddars. It is some years since a doctor in Dublin advised me that eating something savoury was preferable to eating something … Continue reading →

John Bowman’s RTE Radio programme is a weekly search through the sound archives. One week, the archive included a particular recollection of Irish railways. Someone sending their personal effects by train had included a caged parrot among the items to … Continue reading →

Leaving the money pit that is my car at the garage, I left a note with the key, “there is a knocking noise in the offside rear shock absorber.” A call came from the garage. “Mr Poulton, we have replaced … Continue reading →

It was once commented to me that one never saw a happy jogger. At face value, the comment was easy to accept. How many times had I passed runners whose expression seemed, at best, a grimace and, at worst, an … Continue reading →

On this day in 1960, the naming ceremony took place for the very last steam locomotive built by British Rail. The 999th locomotive of the British Railways Standard range, the Evening Star was the only locomotive built with the object of … Continue reading →