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Ian Allan and
the Age of Steam
Ian Allan was one of the formative influences of my
childhood. In the mid-1950s train spotting was very
much my thing, and I would spend whole days (along
with many other 15 year olds, I would add) at the far
end of a Paddington or Victoria platform, or at Three
Bridges - a poorer substitute - snooping round its
locoshed (where the branch line turns off to Horsham),
to top up with some extra numbers. Day-long journeys
to North Wales would be spent wreathed in steam and
soot, hanging out of carriage windows to catch every
passing loco - until, that is, some unsympathetic
adult hauled up the leather strap to keep out the
fumes. Great days!
And the man who made all this possible was a certain
Ian Allan, who published a whole range of ABC British
Railways Locomotives books, region by region, which
listed all the loco numbers by engine type in each
region, ready and waiting to be ticked off when seen.
His Locoshed Book detailed which shed each engine was
assigned to (the Horsham shed, then under the shadow
of Agate's crane, was 75D, and Three Bridges was 75E),
and he also published Trains Illustrated, a monthly
magazine. Another significant first was his coining of
the term 'locospotting', which is now an accepted part
of the language, and recognised by the Oxford
Dictionary.
The son of George and Louise Allan, Ian was born on 29
June 1922 and educated at St Paul's School. He joined
the Southern Railway in 1939 and founded Ian Allan
Publishers in 1945. His name is now incorporated in
the much expanded Ian Allan Group, and among a number
of other responsibilities he is a governor of Christ's
Hospital. He was made a Freeman of the City of London
in 1989 and was awarded an OBE in 1995. The full story
of his career was published in 1992 when Ian Allan
publishing celebrated its 50th anniversary.
I have a number of his books still, all well-thumbed,
and re-reading them now brings back the sound and the
smell and the magic of those great machines, then so
powerful and vibrant with life, but all now gone,
shunted into some siding in the sky, to be usurped by
today's dull electric jobs, each with its own
personality bypass.
The reason for all this nostalgia is quite simple.
While leafing through back copies of the West Sussex
County Times on quite another mission, I came across
the fact that the great Ian Allan, the man who once
bestrode the world of locospotting like a colossus,
had once been a local man. In the 29 December 1944
issue I read that 'train spotting has become the
latest past-time among boys throughout the country,
and has grown so popular that a series of books has
been published by a young railway employee whose home
is at Christ's Hospital'.
Ian Allan then lived at East Lodge, Christ's Hospital,
where his father had been the school clerk, and was
sub-editor of Southern Railway Magazine, and it was
while collecting data for this periodical that he
decided to compile a series to help young spotters
understand the various loco classifications and
numbering sequences. He was clever enough to identify
a trend and had produced six books by the end of 1944,
with another on its way, and 200,000 copies had been
sold since 1942.
In those early days the books were distributed by
neighbours such as Miss Evelyn French of Barns Green,
who also worked for the Southern Railway, but Allan
was rapidly hitting the big time, and when I came on
the scene the publication address was Craven House,
Hampton Court. The Ian Allan Group now has many
strings to its bow: publishing, printing, travel
management, motor dealerships, organic products and
property, and is based in Shepperton.
If any house locally deserves a blue plaque, it must
be East Lodge, Christ's Hospital.
My thanks to Ian Allan's son David, who kindly
helped me with information about his father |
