Martin Norwood spent his childhood in Apsley. He shares his memories of the riverside and the last days of the Nickey Line.
The Riverside before the Gardens
“My aunt….. lived in number 38 (Cotterells) with her husband. They had no children but it was always good fun to go there in the in the afternoons for tea and things… I remember vividly the railway sidings.. and coal yards along there, and of course there was no other road through the town, so, Cotterells was the main thoroughfare. Quite a busy piece of road, for the time”
Mischief on the Line
“I do remember going down at night when they blew it up. They put a whole pile of sleepers on the roadway to protect it because there was two roads going under the each arch, with a centre column, and they put sleepers down to protect the roadway. …as kids, and I suppose we were maybe, 11, 12 years of age, there was a pump trolley that you could push on to the tracks once the trains had stopped….”
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I believe the name of the train you mentioned was Puffing Annie and not Puffing Billy. The railway viaduct across Marlowes was blown up in July 1960. I do have vague recollections of it.