One thing I noticed when I went to the Swanage railway and in the video was the amount of young people in the volunteer work force. Most probably the youth of Swanage. They like me at the Bluebell have seen through all this 'sad,' 'get a life' nonsense from school and now spend their time doing something much more worthwhile- and fun than playing video games and loitering in town all day. Well done for the excellent video.
Don't agree it was 'ignorance' which was the founding and sustaining principle that kept people going on the Swanage railway. I recall a comment I heard many years ago, making the point that closing the line (from Wareham) was a big mistake -- and worse -- more like Luddite destructiveness. Which it clearly was. The point that was made -- relevant then and more so now -- was the holiday traffic and trade from thousands who came down South from the Midlands and further North, had been 'chopped off' and trashed. 'Ignorance' is pure patronising. People KNEW what they'd lost and there was clearly anger at what B R had done AND the way they had done it. Nothing motivates people more powerfully than being treated with contempt. Which is why, through thick and thin -- and there were a LOT of thin times at the beginning -- the pioneers held on, as epitomised by the lady who started the first petition to save the line. People could see the magnitude of what they were taking on. To use an analogy; people could see what they were facing in 1939. They had no idea how they were going to win. But as the saying goes; giving up was not an option. Which after B R's treatment of the line and those who relied on it, felt. Time and again history demonstrates the same principle.
One thing I noticed when I went to the Swanage railway and in the video was the amount of young people in the volunteer work force. Most probably the youth of Swanage. They like me at the Bluebell have seen through all this 'sad,' 'get a life' nonsense from school and now spend their time doing something much more worthwhile- and fun than playing video games and loitering in town all day. Well done for the excellent video.
Don't agree it was 'ignorance' which was the founding and sustaining principle that kept people going on the Swanage railway. I recall a comment I heard many years ago, making the point that closing the line (from Wareham) was a big mistake -- and worse -- more like Luddite destructiveness. Which it clearly was. The point that was made -- relevant then and more so now -- was the holiday traffic and trade from thousands who came down South from the Midlands and further North, had been 'chopped off' and trashed.
'Ignorance' is pure patronising. People KNEW what they'd lost and there was clearly anger at what B R had done AND the way they had done it. Nothing motivates people more powerfully than being treated with contempt. Which is why, through thick and thin -- and there were a LOT of thin times at the beginning -- the pioneers held on, as epitomised by the lady who started the first petition to save the line. People could see the magnitude of what they were taking on. To use an analogy; people could see what they were facing in 1939. They had no idea how they were going to win. But as the saying goes; giving up was not an option.
Which after B R's treatment of the line and those who relied on it, felt. Time and again history demonstrates the same principle.
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