LIVERY DEBATE A WITH A DIFFERENCE

Your reference to Ernest F. Carter’s book Britain’s Railway Liveries in the article ‘The Hidden 100’ (SR467) brought back memories of the terrible panning this book received in Trains Illustrated in August 1963. TI’s reviews were notoriously tough, but this one was a corker. The reviewer, the revered Mr Hamilton Ellis, clearly hated the book and wasn’t going to spare the author’s feelings, suggesting that he “seems generally to have gone out with a spiked stick and a basket, gathering every item, however wrong or contradictory about this subject and to have had the lot set up in type without further bother”. He concludes with a final condemnation: “A more careful man would have made a shorter book and a trustworthy one. Painters and model makers should be on their guard.” So perhaps not quite as thorough as you suggest! Bob Carter (not a relative as far as I know), Ford, Aylesbury, Bucks