The Nostalgia of Steam

John Gilks has had two lives - and isn’t finished yet! One life was a full-time career in local government, the other, more a vocation perhaps, was a love of railways; at times the two have overlapped, as in his role as lecturer on transport matters. His photographs have appeared regularly in the railway press since 1955, and the ‘Talking of Trains’ evening class that he started in Surbiton in 1960 continues to this day, with a northern outpost at Malton, near his home in North Yorkshire. He holds an MSc degree and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and the Chartered Institute of Transport. In addition he is a Freeman of the City of London and Company Secretary of the Friends of the National Railway Museum, York. Mike Esau is well known as a railway photographer. He took his first picture in 1950, and up to the end of steam on BR travelled all over the country. He is noted for his imaginative handling of the subject, and continues to be an active photographer, being closely involved with the Bluebell Railway. Books of his own pictures have been published, most recently a new edition of his photographic essay Steam into Wessex. He has edited and carried out picture research for many other titles, and contributed to a wide range of publications.