Page 16 - Jigsaw July 2018

A glance at the past...
On the right tracks Eric Franklin on holidays and day trips
The school summer holidays are upon us again and for some travel beckons.
Until about fifty years ago when the motorcar became affordable, most holidays and day trips began at the local railway station, of which Thrapston had two, Midland Road and Bridge Street. The latter was on the London and North West Railway had a very imposing station building, which was located on what
is now Scott’s and shown on the first picture taken in 1907. About 30 people are waiting for the train from Peterborough which is just entering the station. Day excursions could be either to local towns, such as Peterborough or Northampton, both of which were a one hour journey
or the coast, often Great Yarmouth.
As recently as 1961 an excursion to Yarmouth left Thrapston Bridge Street at 9.50am, arriving in Yarmouth at 1.20pm. After a stay of almost 51⁄2 hours the return train left at 6.45pm, arriving in town at 10.35pm. The cost of an adult return was 18 shillings.
An alternative was to take a charabanc trip. The undated picture below shows
a group of local shopkeepers having a day out at an unknown location. The
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man standing on the left at the back is George Savage, a grocer who married Edith Dickenson in 1915. Intriguingly, the postcard attributes the photographer
as Albert Smith from Jersey. This business existed between 1892 and 1931 producing well over 3000 images of Jersey alone. It is highly likely that this picture was taken by one of his many employees or a freelance photographer, his business seeming to be popular for both printing and distributing postcards.
Thanks for the many positive comments, which are much appreciated, made about these short articles. I still have one on Keystone Coaches in preparation and am always open to suggestions for other subjects.