Monday 24th December
After lunch we loaded up and set off to see Graham's mum, who usually spends Christmas in Cheltenham with Dave, (the eldest of the clan). Although we had two phones dialled into Google maps, we still had difficulty finding his house on this, the third consecutive Christmas visit! Dave's greatest love is Moto Cross (not taking part), but this year we were pleasantly surprised and interested to hear his knowledge of local history, especially about the old steam trains which used to run from Stow to Cheltenham. We all 'just' remember these trains, but never rode on them before Dr Beeching came along and axed them all. Most impressive was the viaduct at Andoversford, which again is long gone. Can't help but give a brief mention here to Flanders' and Swan's 'The Slow Train' where they sang about all the lines and stations lost. Having looked this up on Wikipedia, it's interesting that there's virtually no mention of the Cotswold local stations, but loads up here near Derby - even Ambergate, which I'm slighly baffled about as I know trains do still stop there!
Had this photo been taken in 1963, you would have been able to see the smoke billowing along the bottom of the valley...
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