Merthyr Imp

No I haven't. I have seen it in the shops but decided I couldn't afford it - maybe wait for it to appear on Ebay!

Barton 100 by Alan Oxley published in 2008. A large-size softback book giving a history of the company, profusely illustrated, including sections in colour. Some highlights are a photo and brief details of Barton's experimental front wheel drive bus of the late 1920s, a pictorial section on gas-powered vehicles, the story of W963, and the history of the Skegness service. I don't know if the book is still in print. Back cover, with a portrait of Tommy Barton proudly wearing his OBE.

Volume 3 dealt with the early Midland Stations and more about trams. Back cover. Six volumes in the series are mentioned but I only have three - does anyone know if the rest were published?

The second in this series, mostly dealing with the construction of Victoria and the line through it. Back cover:

I think it was part of Nabisco from the 1920s, but I remember it being sold as Welgar Shredded Wheat in the 1950s if not the 1960s. http://www.historyworld.co.uk/advert.php?id=896&offset=0&sort=0&l1=Food&l2=Cereals

That would be when it was still branded as Welgar Shredded Wheat.

This was the first in a short series of magazine-sized publications comprised of extracts from the Victorian Nottingham series. I don't know if they would still be available anywhere other than Ebay or similar. Back cover

Having bored everybody with first some of my old football programmes followed by some old theatre programmes I thought I'd now start a new series about books which I have accumulated over the years and which are of significant interest concerning Nottingham and Notts. A lot of people will already have many of these books, but there may be some that people have not come across. A large proportion of them deal with transport matters, including this first one. The only order they are in is the order they appear on my bookshelves. Other than a few suggestions and some guesswork I don't

In October 1995 D'Oyly Carte were back with 'The Mikado' and a new production of Offenbach's 'La Vie Parisienne'. Sorry if the above hasn't come out very clear. And that, as they say nowadays, wraps it up for this series, as that was my last visit to date to the Theatre Royal. My visits there which really started with D'Oyly Carte Opera in 1970 happened to finish with the same company 25 years later.

The usual summer thriller season and two more forgotten plays. Ben Bowers looks good - I'll have the Camembert, followed by the Lamb Cutlets and the Sticky Toffee, thanks.

May 1995 and another play forgotten by me.

D'Oyly Carte visited with two more new productions - 'H. M. S. Pinafore', and for a second non-Gilbert & Sullivan piece - 'Die Fledermaus' (marvellous music!). It was a sort of corporate programme so no local adverts to reproduce.

For the summer thriller season I saw just two productions - 'The Late Edwina Black' by William Dinner & William Morum, and 'The Gentle Hook' by Francis Durbridge. Theatre was about one third full for both. Not many more to go now.

In July, an Alan Ayckbourn play about which I can remember nothing. A very poor house of less than one-fifth full.

In April there was a production of a musical I recently mentioned in another thread on here - 'Me and My Girl'. Nobody well-known in it, perhaps accounting for the theatre being less than half full - this despite the show including g hit songs: 'Leaning on a Lamp Post', 'The Lambeth Walk' and 'The Sun Has Got His Hat On'.

February 1994, and Opera North again, with Chabrier's 'L'Etoile' (only just over half full) and old favourite 'La Traviata' (all but full). Then the following week it was some Andrew Lloyd Webber. Nobody well known in the cast, and being one of his lesser-known pieces the theatre was only two-thirds full.

This year I saw two of the plays in the summer thriller season - 'Peril at End House', an Agatha Christie featuring Hercule Poirot, and 'Fatal Attraction' (not the same as the film). With Opera North's visit in October meaning 'La Boheme' again, that drew 1993 to a close.

In my day (1961/62) at least, the evening fish train rain from Grimsby to Whitland in south west Wales, but vans would have been detached at various places along the way so only a few went the full distance.

The following month D'Oyly Carte were back with productions of 'The Pirates of Penzance' and Offenbach's 'Orpheus in the Underworld'. I yield to no-one as an enthusiast for the works of Gilbert & Sullivan, but this version of 'Orpheus' was among the best things I've ever seen in the theatre. Shame it was only about two thirds full.

Yes, it was W. Rigley & Sons. This advert appears in the book 'The Rise & Fall of Nottingham's Railway Network Vol. 2' by Hayden J. Reed:

At the beginning of June 1993 it was Opera North and 'La Boheme', then a couple of weeks later a good Terence Rattigan play which I can vaguely remember. Perhaps due to the presence of a number of 'TV names' the theatre was just under half full.

Looks as if KTV98 could have been brand new in that photo which would date it to 1949. I expect it soon had an advertisement on the side!

The Sun Has Got His Hat On (Hip, hip, hooray!) was from the musical 'Me and My Girl' for which Noel Gay wrote the music and which also included Leaning on a Lamp-post and The Lambeth Walk.

And in May 1993 another play forgotten by me. A thriller with some TV names in it, and a theatre about a third full.

At the end of April another play which I have completely forgotten. For some reason it was very popular, with the theatre getting on for nearly full.