Shillingstone 40 years On

sh1, a photo by nevardmedia on Flickr. Photo with persmission of M. Snellgrove.

The other day I was uploading my old SDJR After Closure collection onto Flickr which used to exist on the now defunct Fotopic, and was charmed by this montage/panorama of two photographs taken at Shillingtone around 40 years ago just a few years after the rails were lifted If one had a time machine, I bet the chaps on the platform would never have believed that a generation and half later the derelict station they were standing on would be a hive of activity even sporting a brand new replacement signal box.

This story is typical of many scenarios and even more extra ordinary when we think how much more red tape and cost is involved in getting what appear to be the simplest projects off the ground these days. Much of it I think has to do with a greater public awareness and wish to protect what links with history we still possess in the UK. I certainly remember as a child in the late 1960/70's that the general attitude was to chuck out anything old as we looked towards a sanitised modern society, all no doubt fuelled by the space race which was very big at the time. I recall that we all thought we'd be living on the moon, diving hover cars or at least wearing silver space suits whilst eating food pills by the millennium - scarily many of us looked forward to that at the time. How times have changed thankfully!

• See a bigger version of the above photo.
• Visit the Shillingstone Station Project.
• My After Closure Collections.