Autumn 2024 - issue 189

Important news just released is that after seven years as Director of the NRM, Judith McNicol will be leaving the Museum at the end of the year to take up a new role at the British Museum as Managing Director. Craig Bentley will succeed Judith on an interim basis. We will all be sad to see Judith go, she has always been a real friend to the Friends. (See the piece by our president, Frank Paterson M.B.E. on page 3). If there’s one thing which really annoys your editor it’s the email received seconds after completing a purchase or receiving a service which starts “how did we do?”. This invariably leads to a questionnaire which “will only take a few seconds” of my time. I have to confess to usually ignoring these irritations, they always do take much longer than a “few seconds”. Within this edition you will find a questionnaire which has been very carefully compiled by your trustees to seek help from as many of you as possible in order to improve the offer you receive as a member and to seek your help with ways to increase the number of members of your society. The questionnaire will take more than “a few seconds”, it took your editor 8 mins 13 seconds, but please realise that your help here is more than invaluable, it is vital for your society, and that you most assuredly do have your hand on the ship’s wheel. The nights are certainly drawing in now, so what could be better than settling down with a glass or cup charged with something appropriate and, having restored that inner glow with the satisfaction that you have “done your bit” and completed that so very important Questionnaire, than starting out on your Review’s really restorative and riveting read? If we add in the hours of pleasure and stimulation to be got from those second-hand books offers listed at the back of the Review, your editors can guarantee that the light evenings will once again be back before you can say “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”. (Your editor frequently used the garage there when he briefly lived in Menai Bridge). In addition to the well known and keenly anticipated regular contents, your autumn edition offers a veritable cornucopia of cerebral stimuli from bridges to briefcases, pinching to pubbing and dressing ups to dressing downs and visits places from Scotland to Tyneside and all over the country to North Wales. The fascinating article from Hugh Fenwick (p16) brought back very vivid memories for your editor. It was back in 1970 whilst living in Menai Bridge, that during the night he was woken by the cry “the bridge is on fire, the bridge is on fire!” I watched that iconic Britannia Bridge as the flames and glow lit up the night sky. I have never before visited a Heritage Railway or a Museum charged with the task of photographing ….... a briefcase! Fellow editor John Swanwick reveals all in his intriguing article ‘Vincent Raven of Darlington’ (p44), with inspiration from the newly reopened ‘North Road Museum’ after its £27 million transformation into ‘Hopetown Darlington’. Very worth a visit incidentally! Graeme Miller continues his reminiscences of the trials and tribulations of being assistant to a District Motive Power Officer (p45) and Tony Lawton gives us the final part of ‘Railways, Law and Lawyers’, his authoritative and absorbing look at the development of railways from a different perspective. (p39) We include in this issue an advertisement of the Will-Writing Service offered to members by the Friends preferred solicitor, Clare Newton. (p57) It’s worth reminding ourselves that Clare, also a Friend, donates 10% of her fees to the Friends for this service, for which we are most grateful. As a result of Clare providing this service to one of our trustee’s former colleagues, the recipient of her services donated £5,000 to the Friends in gratitude. Enjoy your read, but do please spend those eight minutes on the questionnaire to help your trustees to improve your journal and your society.