Time really does fly

In reply to Jack Clark’s letter regarding my recent epistle concerning the museums in Sunderland, it just goes to show that ‘tempus fugit’ really does, as in time flies.

I did not realise how long it had been since my last visit to the Monkwearmouth Station Museum.

It had, of course, to be more than 12 months as stated in your reply and I thank you cordially for your update and invitation to help out with Michael Ganley’s museum.

I know a relation of his, Brian by the way, small world isn’t it?

I have visited a few local museums over the years ie the aforementioned Grindon Library, Sunderland Museum itself, North East Land, Sea and Air Museum and further afield Beamish Museum over the years since it opened and I have been fortunate to have never paid to enter.

I did used to volunteer over at the South Tynedale Railway in my youth, painting coaches, being a conductor, helping to get a steam train back on after a small derailment and even trying to learn to drive (unofficially) but nowadays, due to ill health I am afraid I will have to decline your offer.

However, thank you for thinking of me, 10 years earlier and I may have accepted.

By the way, the reason I ‘complain’ about our city is that I remember the magnificence of the Town Hall, the railway station, Palmer’s Arcade, Crowtree Road the best example of a Victorian street in the country.

I forget the chap’s name who spoke about the 13th century High Street West and many other buildings along with the interior of the museum. Alan ‘The Quill’ Vincent, Old Penshaw