Tributes are paid to one of Didcot’s founding fathers
MEMBERS, volunteers and staff of the Great Western Society and Didcot Railway Centre were in mourning after Graham Perry, former chairman and one of the group’s founders, died on February 9, just a few weeks short of his 80th birthday.
Born on April 1, 1944, Graham was one of the four schoolboys who started a fundraiser to preserve GWR 0-4-2T No. 1466, a move which eventually resulted in the establishment of the GWR-centric museum set in the grounds of the former 1932 engine shed and depot.
Upon its establishment, Graham was initially the treasurer of the GWS, remaining in the position until 1968, when he then became chairman – a role he held until retiring in 2001.
In April 1961, Graham and three of his trainspotting friends wrote a letter to The Railway Magazine launching an appeal to raise funds and save one of the iconic auto train 0-4-2Ts, and it was published on the August edition. He had previously recalled discovering that they were pioneer railway preservationists when a group of them were travelling home from a spotting tour.
“We had passes for all the sheds in Scotland. But that was when I decided to give up trainspotting – I just got fed up with it,” he said.
“Then, coming back on the train, somebody bought The Railway Magazine and that was when we discovered the letter.”
With the question of propriety on the group’s mind, the society was launched in May 1962, with membership being taken in large numbers.
By March 1964, the £750 to purchase No. 1466 had been raised and became the first in a subsequent “frenzy of preserving locomotives and rolling stock while still available straight out of BR service.”
A GWS statement said: “Graham recalled that his interest in railways must have started when he was a toddler in 1947 or 1948 when his mother used to take him to the footbridge over the railway in Southall to watch trains. Years later, the same footbridge was where the GWS was conceived.
“Apart from what must have been almost full-time voluntary input to the GWS, Graham had a career in local government and later with a marketing agency in Ardington, close to his home village of East Hendred.
“In April 2001, Graham handed over the GWS in good order to his successor as chairman, Richard Croucher. Two years later he was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to railway heritage and was a guest that year when the Princess Royal visited.
“Our condolences go to Graham’s wife Linda, his daughters Becky and Emma, and his grandchildren.”