Shropshire Magazine

Merlin and Daisy enjoy getting up close to some of the Severn Valley Railway rolling stock.

Ken Tudor admires the efforts of a skilled band of volunteer gardeners, and reacquaints himself with a blast from the past

The delightful trip with my ‘railway children’ on the wonderful Severn Valley in Bloom train was a great day out for fun-loving  youngsters – and for a countryside watcher, steam enthusiast and flower-lover like me.

The children – grandchildren Daisy and Merlin – loved every second on the brilliantly restored line and took more than a passing interest in floral displays at Arley station where many films and TV programmes have been shot over the years, including the hit BBC sitcom Oh, Dr Beeching!

For they were able to run about the picnic area and enjoy the wonderful prize-winning plot at this pretty and highly colourful station, which has been picking up awards for its floral displays for more than 100 years.

In many ways one cannot go wrong taking children on a train pulled by a full-sized steam engine. They revel in the enormous scale of the machine and love the sometimes shaky trip, piercing whistle blows and the joy of chugging along, uphill and down dale. It’s the smell too!

Eight-year-old Daisy watched the driver get up steam but Merlin, just four, was fascinated by the sheer size of the monster. He pointed out that it was huge – much larger than those great little Welsh trains he had enjoyed many times. “It’s so massive,” he said, asking if they were all that big in my day.

It was an interesting question because the engine was Bradley Manor, which used to pass my home in Wales every day on the Cambrian Coast line and I travelled on it many times.  Daisy was more interested in the intimacy of having a compartment to ourselves. “This is cool,” she said.

So we were off to a real shock, the sight of elephants play-fighting in mud and camels roaming as we passed the West Midlands Safari Park, before going on to the picturesque Arley area. The station looked wonderful – bountiful baskets, high-colour containers and a real garden packed with fine trees, shrubs and hundreds of perennial plants.

Robert Morris (front) and fellow volunteer Peter Stark.

It’s an amazing creation and maintained by volunteers of course, and working in the borders that day was Robert Morris who, with the help of others, has pumped new life into the garden.

He’s keen to highlight the teamwork and to appreciate the history of the garden, for it’s 100 years since the stationmaster George Batchelor won the last of eight annual consecutive prizes for it.

Mr Batchelor’s work in the early days of the last century made Arley famous throughout the railway world and his spirit lives on today. He was a phenomenon, winning the best station prizes every year between 1902 and 1909, and all of this was done in his spare time – he was a stationmaster from 7.20am to 7.20pm, with an hour off for dinner and tea!

So it’s fitting that today volunteers still keep it colourful and a place of retreat, a stepping-down place for a nice walk and a picnic in the gardens, and a winner of the commercial section in the local Town in Bloom competition.

Often floral displays at public areas are mostly bedding and baskets, but Bob and his team have made this a wonderful all-year-round feature for train travellers, with shrubberies, bedding and even a couple of herbaceous borders.

A lot of herbaceous plants came with Robert from Ashwood Nurseries where he’s worked for many years. “Many were throw-outs, plants not suitable for sale but which I managed to rescue and grow on,” he said. 

“It’s  lovely when people appreciate it – some of them say how much they have enjoyed the visit and how they appreciated the flowers,” he said.

It was clear that many of the throw-outs had made great progress: the strong stems of acanthus and the spires of lupins confirmed that this was a real garden for enthusiasts. Also flowering were Sedum spectabile, dahlias and Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, with Clematis viticella and good old nasturtiums scrambling around the structures. The hollyhocks and lilies were just hanging on to their late-summer blooms.

Bee heaven.

Predators

Gardening is made easier by some special conditions surrounding the borders and Daisy and Merlin, who grow organic vegetables and flowers, were all ears. “We have all the country predators – birds, hedgehogs and others that enjoy insects and slugs,” he explained. “We’re also glad to have no blackspot on roses,” he said pointing to glossy leaves on the plants. “It’s all down to the soot and grime from the trains,” he said, adding that blackspot can be a problem in the countryside whereas in the old industrial towns it was virtually unheard of.

“There are downsides, too, because we have rabbits and squirrels that gnaw the bark and recently we had an invasion of sheep,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Soon it was back on the train, chuffing back down along the snaking line of the River Severn, admiring the scenery and, yes, the elephants were still messing about in the mud. At Kidderminster the children climbed up onto the footplate to see the roaring fire and Merlin was amazed by the array of dials and knobs. 

A couple of days later we had a lovely reminder of the trip as we sat down together to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on television. Onto the screen came a fire-breathing monster which Merlin said looked like “our train”.

He was right: it was Bradley Manor in all its glory, bright green and shiny and belching out the steam as it raced alongside the River Severn. And Daisy was amazed to see inside the train. “It’s our carriage,” she shouted, recognising the cloth upholstery and the string-net luggage holders.

What a great experience – get on the old trains and enjoy them and admire the people who have restored and operate such a wonderful heritage line. And if possible get a ticket to Arley, admire the countryside and smell the roses . . .

The magnificent herbaceous beds blooming away at trackside.