The book I read to research this post was The Thaxton Branch by Peter Paye which is an excellent book which I bought from Amazon. Peter is an expert on the history of the trains in Eastern England and worked for British Rail for many years. Thaxton is a small town in Essex that is now very much part of the London commuter belt. In times past it was a major wool and cutlery manufacture centre in Britain. In fact it is rather remote for getting coal to this area otherwise it may very well have developed into a major cutlery centre like Sheffield. A railway was built here which used the legal definition of light railway which exempted it from a lot of the rules normal railways had to follow which made it viable. A plan went to the planning office for a London to Edinburgh line that would pass through here but it wasn't taken particularly seriously and several other routes were also submitted before a final one was accepted. When the railway was built as a branch line from Elsenham to Thaxted there was 1 goods train & 1 mixed train per day and the rest were passenger trains. This line is approximately 10 miles long and eventually succumbed to competition from the National motorcoach service which started running coaches here from 1920. Nowadays there is a bus service here just once a week and it is the classic case of a small town that has been drastically changed by economic pressures within Britain. The nearest fairly big town to here is probably Bishops Stortford. I really enjoyed this book and apparently it was the first book written by Peter although later he wrote a second edition.

The book I read to research this post was Nelson's Spy which is a very good book which I bought from a car boot sale. This book is a history of Alexander Scott who may have been a spy at the time of the Battle Of Trafalgar and was a close friend of Lord Nelson. He may have been a key person in the outcome of the battle and helped tend to Nelson when he was mortally wounded. It was a battle between the British & French navies and it was the British who won. Alexander was a minister which enabled him to evade suspicion as a spy and also hear things because many people dropped their guard with a member of the clergy. He got the chance to do lots of travelling and lived to a ripe old age. His daughter wrote this book of recollections about him in 1842 and it has recently had an introduction added and been republished. Alexander came from a wealthy family but decided to go into the clergy because he lacked money. Many clergy men were able to save a nice nest egg and certainly Nelson rewarded him for any information. At one stage fresh from having a post in the navy he was offered a job as a chaplain on a smallish ship but felt it was a step backwards. Nelson told him if he got in an influential position he would make sure he was offered a better job. Spies were very important and could make the difference between winning or losing a battle. Even if their ships were outnumbered they could try and force a ship to put into port to try and even the odds or force a ship to go on the open sea where they could engage it in battle.

The book I read to research this post was The Hayling Railway by Peter Paye which is an excellent book which I bought from a specialist bookshop. This is a new book which has only recently been published. This is the 3rd edition. Hayling Island is a moderately successful seaside near Portsmouth & Havant. It's not as popular for holidays as it was and in the 19th century there was a railway linking it to Havant. There is a fine beach on the south coast of the island and much of the surrounding sea only makes it an island at high tide so it isn't a true island. Having said that the island is a substantial size. The Hayling Railway Company leased the railway from the London, Brighton & South Coast Company in 1872 & much of the railway was single track and ran on an embankment to avoid flooding. Nearby Portsmouth is a major naval base & from Havant the railway is linked to the rest of the South Coast Network. Havant station & Hayling South station were expanded and platforms were added. Some of the track was upgraded to dual track which enabled a more frequent service to be run. Alas in 1962 along with many other railways it was closed. Havant & Portsmouth which are both quite sizeable are still connected by railway to the rest of the network. I really enjoyed this book and it kept my interest throughout. Also it's a reasonable length at around 150 pages. Peter Paye is something of an expert on East Anglian railways and has written quite a lot of books about that. His books are consistently good. Finally Hayling Island isn't that far from the Isle of Wight which is a bigger island off Southampton and more well known as a holiday resort.