Hello Mallard - our school railway society arranged memorable shed-bashing coach trips to the likes of Eastleigh, Bournemouth and Weymouth mpds to catch the last year or two of Southern steam. I'm glad (relieved actually!) to see that the other guys have got in to answer your query about steam's demise at Grantham. I was just an occasional visitor from Leicester with a father who took a few pictures. In fact I'm on here mainly to ask questions rather than answer them, so thanks for chipping in guys - it's good to have your company.
Here we are, then, on the afternoon of Thursday August 1st 1963.
1. Given what's been said previously about the regular removal of spotters from the Grantham platforms, this group of seven lads may soon be on their way should one of the Station Inspectors spot them larking about on the trolley.
2. No locomotive, or even a train, in view - just one of those 'people' shots that present themselves while spending a few hours on a railway station. Technique was important – a wide aperture combined with accurate use of the rangefinder to set the focus (the camera wasn't an SLR, and autofocus was a dream for the future).
3. & 4. As 60129 has said, on this day 34F had less than six weeks before closure. Not long after we arrived a driver came up to us and asked Dad if he would take a photograph of some of his mates and him over at the shed, because they wanted a group picture before the shed closed. It meant a trip 'over the tracks' to where the main line pilot was stabled, on the far side of the coaling stage. I remember the day very clearly because, being 'well brought up' (i.e. having had a perhaps rather more sheltered childhood than many), I had never crossed the railway by a non-public route before. Clambering over all those railway lines, far into 'forbidden territory', at the age of 9 felt like a huge adventure.
Footplate crew and shed staff were gathered together in front of 60112
St Simon, the best A3 they had at the time.
In the cab are Mick Guy (a fireman but, typically, they've let him have the driver's seat) and Bill Harrison (driver) - presumably the crew of the day. Below, from left to right, are: Albert Bellamy (shed foreman); Stan Robinson, Fred Burrows and Roy Veasey (drivers); Ken Baines (storekeeper); Bernard Nickerson, Cyril Balham and Frank Lawson (drivers).
Later in the month, on 25th August, 60112 travelled to Weymouth when it hauled an enthusiasts’ special train,
The Southern Counties Enterprise, from London Waterloo - see
http://www.sixbellsjunction.co.uk/60s/630825sc.html - and is reckoned to have achieved 90mph. This was probably further from the East Coast Main Line than it had ever been before [comments welcome!], and it was given a thorough clean for the trip [edit 7 Sept 2012 - photographic evidence since discovered shows that that this was a repaint, presumably carried out at Doncaster Works] – indicative of the pride men such as these took in the reputation of their depot during its final days. [see
Steam World, Issue 250 (April 2008), lower illustration on page 53 - where I first learned of this 'day out' for 60112].
St Simon, owned by the Duke of Portland, was one of the most successful thoroughbred racehorses of the 19th century. In 1884 he won the Epsom Gold Cup, the Ascot Gold Cup and the Goodwood Cup. His skeleton is preserved at the Natural History Museum in London.
When I returned to Grantham in more recent times I had the great pleasure of meeting Roy Veasey, who introduced himself to me as the Driver who, 45 years before, had invited us over to the shed to take these pictures! Roy began his railway career in December 1942 as a messenger boy in the Goods Office at Grantham. He transferred to 'the Loco' in February 1945 starting as a cleaner, then moving on to fireman. He fired express trains on the main line from 1954 until 1960; during this period one of his regular locomotives was 60144
King's Courier. Roy became a driver in 1960, transferring from steam to diesel locomotives in the 1960s.
