It all started during a summer holiday with my parents at my aunt & uncles place in Claydon near Ipswich in August. My uncle gave me an old box camera which was a bit dilapidated but still worked. It took the old roll film, size 127 I think. I used my pocket money to buy a train ticket to Ipswich & Colchester.
Here I took my very first pictures of trains. There were still some steam hauled trains around, but diesels were more plentiful. So most of my pictures at this time were of English Electric Type 4’s (Class 40) which were quite new and gradually being employed on the Liverpool Street to Ipswich & Norwich expresses replacing the “Britannia” class steam locos.
I also took pictures of the Brush Type 2’s (Class 31), Sulzer Type 2’s (Class 20) and various diesel multiple units. One day at Colchester I was lucky enough to get a picture of a Thompson B1 steam loco on the Liverpool Street to Harwich boat train. It’s not the best of pictures, but I have included it in this website under “Stations – Colchester”.
This was the first picture I took of a steam train. Unfortunately the old camera was not in the best of condition and started letting in light, so I didn’t use it any more. The following year I bought another old camera at a jumble sale, but more about that in 1963.
