Off the Rails

Back in the pre-Covid world of 2018 I used to co-host a show on a local community radio station called Wycombe Sound. My partner in crimes wasa friend called Andy Aliffe, a retired BBC light entertainment producer with a genuine love for local history. He also has an alter-ego and is known locally as the Emperor of High Wycombe because he has a splendid wardrobe of Wycombe-related finery and takes part in many events, often raising money for charity in the process. Andy had been posting lots of information on Facebook about the quirkier history of the town and called these snippets The Emperor's Bits. What we decided to do is take it onto the radio.

In our first series we looked at everything from ghosts and UFO sightings to the 1960s and 1970s music scene (the Sex Pistols played their second ever gig in Wycombe and it was Dusty Springfield's home town) to cosplaying and taking part in geocaching treasure hunts.

For our second series we did something a little different.

High Wycombe train station is part of the Chiltern Railways network and there are twelve stops between Wycombe and the terminus at London Marylebone. As we had twelve shows to make we decided to get off at each stop and explore the area around it. So, for example, we got off at Beaconsfield station and visited the National Film and Theatre School (where Wallace and Gromit were born) and we went behind the scenes at the world's oldets model village - Bekonscot. Every stop had something fascinating to for us to visit and explore. 

We called the series Off the Rails and, in order to promote it on social media we went to the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton (near Aylesbury) to make use of some of their exhibits. 

Here's the result:

Tremendous fun.

It would be lovely to do some ind of show like that again in the future.

Maybe as a YouTube series?