Jacqueline Day

I grew up in Gloucestershire and a lot of my childhood holidays were spent camping across Wales. Aberporth and Tresaith were initially family favourites before we ventured further north, to Barmouth, into Snowdonia and then: Dad discovered the Ffestiniog Railway. Momentous day! It was the early 1970s, the railway was in a state of ambitious redevelopment, and Dad became obsessed. We spent a lot of time visiting the railway and Porthmadog. Dad built his own version running around our garden. The first black and white photo was taken by the Stroud News & Journal and the headline read Where the Railway Runs through the Middle of the House. It really did that, in one basement window, across the room and out the other. It crossed the room on removable stilts as his rock band rehearsed in the basement too.

Dad loved all the Ffestiniog locos but his favourite was Prince, the little George England saddle tank. The real Prince was in a sorry pre-renovation state in the seventies, but Dad taught himself how to build locomotives from books (no internet) and built a working model of Prince, which I still have. Eventually he moved onto building bigger 7 1/4″ gauge engines when he moved to flatter, more back-friendly gardens in East Anglia.

Porthmadog and the Ffestiniog Railway feel like they’re in my blood; I’ve lived with their stories and history for six decades now. My last picture is Dad in Malta, when we finally holidayed overseas, but he’s still flying the Ffestiniog flag on his t-shirt.

All photos © Jack Day unless otherwise credited.