Geoff Courtney's regular column.
MEMORIES from more than SO years a go of the iconic Collectors' Corn es rt ore run by BR's Midland Region in Euston have led to the discovery of three auction catalogues from the early day so f the railway an a movement.
The memories, published in issues 265 and 267 of Heritage Railway l,ed l if e-long railway enthusiast Stefan Gronkowsktiodelve into family archives in the loft of his home in the Cornish village of Nanpean, near St Austell.
And among the paperwork he unearthedw ere catalogueso f railwayanas alesh eld in the mid- 1960s by auctioneersC harlesB utters& Sonsi n Stoke-on-T r en at nd Derby, on behalf of British Railways.
The Stokes alew as held in BR'sd epot in Whieldon Road on June 6, 1964, and the Derby auctions at the BR Riverside Sidings warehouse on November 7 the same year and May 22 the following year. T het hree cataloguesc ontaint yped lots with minimal descriptionsa nd no estimatesw, ith the Stokes alec ontaining 261 lots and the two Derby auctions a combined 821 items.
Dominantamongthe 14pagesofthe Stoke sale, which contained items from north Staffordshirea nd south Cheshire stations that had recently closed, were platform and waiting room seatsw, hich according to the hand- written notes in the catalogue sold for upwards of 1 Os (SOpf)o ra group of three. There are also platform trucks, w heelbarrowsa, plethora of platform oil lamps, and even an LNWR coal scuttle from the stationmaster's office at Birmingham New Street.
Station totem signs also featured - 1 O from Newcastle- under- Lymien two lots sold for a grand total of two guineas (£2.1 O )- while clocks, including pre- Groupinge xamplesa, lsow ent under the hammer, for upwards of £ 1 1S s( £ 1.75) S. tefan6, 9, f irst showeda n interesti n railwaysa tthe ageo f two, when he lived nearP eterborougha nd his grandparents'homew asj ust 100y ards from the EastC oastM ain Line.
He became a trainspotter at the age of seven in the mid- late 1950s and was a frequent visitor to the city's New England shed ( 35A, recoded 34E in 1958).
At 12 he started making his own trips by rail, and Rugby became a favourite haunt as did the two Birmingham stations of New Street and Snow Hill, while he was also an enthusiastic member of a locomotive club at Peterborough'sL incolnR oadB oys' School, w here he was a pupil.
One memory he recallsw as a nine- day trip organised by the club in August 1964 to northern England and Scotland. S tayinga t youth hostelst, h e lads visited numerous depots in such locationsa sC arlisleP, erth, A berdeen and Inverness- a n itineraryt hat must have been a dream come true for an avid southern- basedtr ainspotter.
Master printer
On leaving school in 1965 he became a motor mechanica, nd in the early 1980s opened his own garageb usinessH. e and his wife Janet have three daughters, and in semi- retiremenht e runsa n MoT testing station in Redruth with one of the daughters, Mara.
Explainingh ow the catalogues camei nto his possessionS, tefan said:" My grandfather was a master printer interested in paperwork, and the cataloguesb ecamep art of the family's collection of paperwork and photographs.
"After reading the memories of Collectors'Corneirn HeritageR ailway, which were fascinating and pure nostalgia, I delvedi nto someo ld family archivesin my railwayr oom - the loftand found these three old catalogues which are full ofinteresting details of itemsf or sale, a nd luckilys omeo f the prices have been shown:' ➔ Details of the lots in the two Derby auctions, including no fewer than 11 Jubilee nameplates in the November 7, 1964 sale, will be published in next month's railwayana column.