My earliest memories are of growing up in a quiet street in South Chingford, very close to the Walthamstow border, where the street lights were mercury vapour green, and people at night all looked like ghosts.
I can clearly remember the surprise when my Dad lifted me up to see a steam engine rush past very close to me – I must have been 2 or 3, so not long after the end of World War 2. The level crossing was at Higham’s Park, and the engine was an N7, still in LNER black, heading to Chingford from Liverpool Street. From that point I was hooked on steam. I know the livery, not from memory, but because for a long time I had a notebook where my Dad had written the pre-BR number, now sadly lost – the notebook and the engine.
For some reason I took few photos of the N7 suburban trains, but here are two.
LNER N7/5 0-6-2T No 69671 storms to the top of Bethnal Green bank on 15 April 1960.
My local line for the first 19 years of my life - Wood Street, Walthamstow, with LNER N7/3 0-6-2T No 69707 heading for Liverpool Street on 24 April 1960 shortly before the electrics took over.
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