BIFFING AND BANGING

Local historian and former Salisbury councillor John Abbott recalls the stories told him by his father Arthur (who died 20 years ago) when he was the last foreman on duty at the shed on July 7 1967, and had the task of formally closing it at the end of his shift and taking the keys to the station. He also recalled the arrival at the depot earlier in the year of a sealed box van. He asked to look inside and was amazed to see stacks of name and numberplates that had been removed from locomotives for safekeeping. Which they were and where they went is not known. Arthur’s melancholia is recorded in the Kingfisher book Southern Steam Surrender, a three-year labour of love compiled by John Bird, a photographer-cum-writer who admits he was “simply in the right place at the right time” to record the last rites. Arthur told John: “When I signed off I was struck by the biffing