Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes

ONCE upon a time, Londoners could exchange the satanic city for the Golden Triangle on day excursions called Daffodil Specials, run between 1931 and 1959.

Down the Great Western they would fly to the hosts of golden daffodils, behind engines like King Edward I, which I photographed on the Watercress Line near Alresford.

Their destination was on the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire borders. There, they could walk along the meadows which used to grow wild daffs in colonies, pick as many as they wanted, or buy bunches from cottagers.

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Whenever I see the golden flowers, I think of the gold colour of the domes and smokestacks of those glorious old engines.

Eighty years old and more now, a handful of historic engines were saved from the cutter's torch nearly half a century ago. This example is the only King left in the world.

But the wild daffodil, together with the steam era, was virtually swept into oblivion, by the diesel revolution.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette March 25

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