It is always bittersweet to receive a donation of material from one of our deceased members. It’s obviously a terrible job for the family to have to dispose of a lifetime’s collection of treasures, but where it is practical for us to do so, we will take in what we can and find goods homes for it all.
The latest such donation is from our late member Brian Beers who died in October 2023 and thanks to his widow, Margaret. Brian served 41 years as a railwayman, starting as a signalman in the Trent area, rising to the very busy Trent Station South Junction box before being made redundant in advance of power signalling arriving. He quickly returned to the railway as Goods Guard at Toton before moving to the salaried side. When he finished he was an instructor for Trainload Freight in the last days of British Rail.
On top of all that, from the collection he has left us it is clear that he was also a railway enthusiast. As such we are delighted to receive a series of photographs that he took around Trent in the 1950s, as well as a cache of paperwork from the period. It is also clear that during the time he was at Toton he developed a keen interest in the history of the place, in particular the various phases of its history of freight handling.
Perhaps the most significant part of the donation is a broad library of railway books. Quite honestly, there is little among it that the Midland Railway Society needs, and as Brian’s interest was nationwide, there are a lot of titles which are –– and my tongue is firmly in my cheek when I say this –– a little too Brunswick green and copper-capped chimney for our tastes!
In the fullness of time, however, these will all be found a good home as we have promised and our members will get first ‘dibs’ on them at the AGM in April.
All of this notwithstanding, it is worth reminding all our members that we have limited resources (notably in terms of space) when it comes to handling bequests of large collections… especially books. We recognise it is a difficult subject to discuss, but PLEASE do try and have a conversation with your loved-ones, if you haven’t done so already, about what you want to happen to your treasures when the time comes. As much as we would like to, the Midland Railway Society can’t guarantee that we will always be able to help when it comes to books and items relating to “other” railways. On the other hand, none of us want to see historic ephemera and paperwork end up in a skip.
On that serious note, thank you once again to Margaret Beers and we are very sorry to have lost Brian as one of our members.
