MY name is David, a Taffy who has long ceased to drive an Army lorry to Glasgow station to pick up the lads.

By chance, during a Covid-19 avoidance search, I landed on your piece about Sir Rod Stewart’s love of model trains and connection with Thomas The Tank Engine.

A short while after I came home from Korea, I resumed working for GPO Telephones, and by chance, while working in a local rail junction booking office, came to meet two guys in clerical garb – a father and son, who had come to see a very old tank engine there (Quakers Yard, Merthyr Tydfil). As I was working in the booking office, I heard all that was being said.

They were researching in preparation for the writing of a children’s book, based on the adventures of a little tank Engine.

As I had been brought up nearby before call-up, I had seen the engine at work many times. It was so old that the crew’s cab had a canvas roof, and it was so small that the driver was insistent that only one of the priests could come on board.

And so the younger one stayed behind and even footed my ladder as I ran the cabling and told him a “War Story”.

Years later, I began reading the Thomas Tank tales to my two boys, which left me wondering if I had met the Revs Awdry.

Well now... Boyo! I have sent off goodness knows how many emails but no one has answered, but I would like to find out before Covid Day.

P.S. Do the Geese still patrol Ballantine’s Depot? And I wonder if Sir Rod can help.

Stay safe.

David

THE Glasgow Times (November 25) recounted the incident in a house in Allison Street on December 30, 1969, of two policemen being shot dead, with a third policeman, an inspector, being severely wounded by Howard Wilson (right), a former policeman.

The forgotten hero of this incident was PC John Sellars, who never received full credit for his bravery and involvement in the incident, and was only awarded the Glasgow Corporation Medal for bravery in 1971, only after his wife, who sadly died in 2006, had written to the Lord Provost of Glasgow. In my opinion, in the circumstances, this award was only a belated consolation gesture. Six years following the incident, John Sellars, frustrated with no sign of promotion, left the Glasgow police and moved with his family to England and joined the Sussex Police. I would support a belated award of the George Medal being made to John Sellars, who I believe is still alive in England.

RD