REMEMBERING JEREMY ENGLISH

I WAS very sad to learn of the death of Jeremy English (January issue). I knew him in the early days of Railscene and we became good friends. He was gracious enough to use some of my photographs on the covers of his video boxes, and I was honoured to be invited by him to join him in the cab of a HST from St Pancras to Sheffield, as he knew I hailed from Leicester and would be able to add something to the route commentary. My photograph shows Jeremy to the right by the cab door, with the train crew at Sheffield at the end of our journey on May 28, 1986.

He was far sighted and broke the mould in railway videos, taking the leap to buy broadcast video equipment when so many at the time were still putting out poor quality, bog standard VHS tapes. He did much to improve the quality of railway filming and today’s filmmakers owe him a debt.

John Stretton

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