The Dean Forest Railway

As with any year, 1964 was a mixture of good and bad, important and trivial (in some eyes!), world events, political and social change and, on the UK’s railways, a continuation of great upheaval following the twin prongs of the 1955 Modernisation Plan – and the introduction of dieselisation – and the Beeching Plan – to close many hundreds of miles of our railway system.

A potentially explosive incident took place between the USA and North Korea in the Gulf of Tonkin; China exploded her first atomic bomb; Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa for opposing Apartheid; and, in America, the Surgeon General warned against the dangers of cigarette smoking! In the UK, The Beatles were still ‘on the up’, with their memorable trips to the USA, Australia and New Zealand; and, on the roads, the first Ford Mustang was produced. January 3rd saw the 72nd birthday of J R R Tolkien, whose books The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were just beginning to gather cult reading status amongst University students, having been largely ignored since their publication many years earlier. July 21st was the 18th birthday of Cat Stevens, later to become a hit singer/songwriter before converting to Islam; and August 3rd was the 21st birthday of one of your authors!

Musically, the year started with The Dave Clark Five feeling Glad All Over at No.2 in the Charts and ended with The Beatles’ appropriately titled I Feel Fine racing to become the sixth in their incredible run of eleven consecutive No.1 hits! In between, there were No.1’s for The Bachelors (Diane), The Four Pennies (Juliet), The Animals (The House of the Rising Sun), The Rolling Stones (It’s All Over Now), and Roy Orbison (Oh, Pretty Woman). Radio Caroline launched their broadcasting challenge to the BBC at Easter, out on the ocean waves, with The Rolling Stones’ Not Fade Away; the Olympic Games took place in Tokyo; Mods and Rockers ‘enjoyed’ their skirmishes at various seaside resorts; My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins took the lion’s share of the Oscars; and at Wembley on 14th May, West Ham United beat Preston North End 3-2 in the
F A Cup.

On the railways, line closures that had slightly accelerated during 1963, literally went into overdrive this following year, with no fewer than 362 services, lines or parts of lines ended – virtually one per day for the whole year! Among these were the closure of the ex-M&SWJR route between Swindon Town and Cirencester Watermoor on (appropriately) April Fool’s Day (!); withdrawal of passenger services over the two branches from Kemble five days later; passengers between Northampton (Castle) and Peterborough (East); closure of ex-LNW Seaton to Uppingham and ex-GNR Humberstone-Melton Mowbray North routes; passengers from Barry (Town) to Bridgend; closure between Caernarfon-Llanberis; and the ex-DN&SR ‘cross-country’ route from Didcot to Newbury. Readers will no doubt have their own ‘favourites’!

Your authors hope you enjoy the mix and will, like Oliver, come back for more!