All articles in Transport & Industry
20th November, 2024 in Transport & Industry
Should you write a book or get involved in practical environmental campaigns?
What could be the role of a writer in fostering advocacy and encouraging change? Journalism may have an immediate activist approach, helping to shape and change public opinion, but what about books about the environment? The example of the late L.T.C Rolt, influential in the revi…
9th July, 2024 in Transport & Industry, Trivia & Gift
Three Million Miles in a Volvo
I love finding out about what motivates people and how the journey of their lives has unfolded. I am nosey and make no apology for it. Mind you, these are things you certainly require as a journalist; an almost manic need to dig away until you get what you need, which is generall…
19th January, 2024 in Local & Family History, Transport & Industry, Women in History
The Last Women of the Durham Coalfield – Hannah’s grand-daughter
This is the last book in the trilogy that started with my great great grandmother, Hannah Hall in the 1820’s as she re-located with her family to a new coal mine opening up in Hetton-le-Hole, County Durham. No-one at that time could have known the importance of that move. By 1822…
25th January, 2023 in Transport & Industry
Symmetry on the London Underground
Humans are natural puzzle solvers; we make sense of the world around us by seeking out similarities in the labyrinth of patterns and information that we receive. This is why we are drawn to symmetry and why it’s so pleasing to view in photography. Over the past 8 years I’ve been…
24th November, 2022 in Transport & Industry
The train event: The ‘Big Four’ railway companies
It is now 100 years since Great Britain’s railways were drawn together into four companies. They were known as the ‘Big Four’, but why? In 1804 Richard Trevithick pioneered steam traction that was mobile on metal rails. Since the 1700s, wagonways had been used to feed mines and o…
5th October, 2022 in Transport & Industry
The Last Ten Years: The End of Steam – in pictures
In The Last Ten Years, author Brian J. Dickson presents stunning colour photographs from the collections of three enthusiasts of the Seafield Railway Club in north London. Meeting regularly at New Southgate station to record the steam-handled traffic, their focus was initially on…
25th March, 2022 in Transport & Industry
Canals of the British Isles: A history
The history of canals and river navigations in the British Isles is long, complicated, and continuing, and thus hard to summarise. Joseph Boughey, author of British Canals: The Standard History has selected six historical developments in which there have been confusions and varie…
6th January, 2022 in Transport & Industry, Trivia & Gift
VanLifers: Beautiful conversions for life on the road
Living and travelling in converted vehicles has become increasingly popular in the UK in recent years and the coronavirus pandemic has only increased the trend further. Life on the road can offer an incomparable sense of freedom and community, with endless opportunity for ne…
29th November, 2021 in Transport & Industry, Trivia & Gift
The story behind Giles Chapman’s Britain’s Toy Car Wars
Ever since the publication of my book Britain’s Toy Car Wars: The War Of Wheels Between Dinky, Corgi & Matchbox, I’ve been pondering on collecting old diecast toy cars and lorries again. It’s proved hard to resist, an impulse hard-wired in over more than 50 years. I…
26th November, 2021 in Local & Family History, Transport & Industry
How Birmingham went global
Just how did Birmingham, a city that lies near the geographic centre of England, go global? A trip around the city’s canals may hold the answer, writes author Simon Wilcox. If no-one else knew it at the time, a local poet and innkeeper called John Freeth certainly knew. However m…
29th September, 2021 in Transport & Industry
Blitz Motorcycles: In pictures
Back in 2009, Fred Jourden and Hugo Jézégabel couldn’t find any that fitted their specifications – so they decided to make their own. Leaving their 9–5 jobs they set up Blitz Motorcycles in Paris, creating a garage where they would build only the most beautiful and unique motorcy…
5th August, 2021 in Transport & Industry, Trivia & Gift
Cars We Loved… with Giles Chapman
It’s taken seven years, but now part of my life is complete. With Cars We Loved In The 1990s I’ve finished recording half a century’s worth of the most fondly remembered cars this country has ever known. Exactly 250 of them covered in detail, along with masses of extra contempora…