Manchester Stories - John

This afternoon I met John from Doncaster, South Yorkshire. John was visiting Manchester to see a Railway Exhibition. He was sitting on the exact same bench as Robert from my earlier post, coincidentally enough, Robert was also from Yorkshire and was visiting Manchester to see a Railway Exhibition.

"Some of my favourite years were in the 50s and 60s. We really didn't have the money, but people were friendly, you could leave your door unlocked and nobody would blooming go in. Now you can't even sit in your house with your door open, it just isn't the same. It has gone downhill since the 70s, security, safety, I mean there are people walking around with knives! They don't think twice about stabbing you, you never had that in the 50s or 60s, alright, you had one or two murders, but nothing like what you get now. Now, lives are lost so easily and senselessly, people are desensitised to all this - it's very unfortunate.

I've been into railways since 1956, my friend got me into it. Sometime later I got into photography, eventually, I managed to bring together my two great hobbies. I've made a living from taking pictures of railways, I have published well over 100,000 pictures on railways and steam engines in magazines and newspapers, in fact, I have my own set of books. What really fascinates me is steam locomotives; the smell of the steam is distinct and beautiful, and when you capture the motion of the steam and the scenic background on film, it is absolutely gorgeous, there is nothing like it!"

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