Welcome to our Southern special

摘要

I will never forget my first encounter with the Southern. It was in the summer of 1962 and we were off on a family holiday to Cornwall. I couldn't contain my excitement, for until then, numbers beginning with 3 might as well have been on the Moon to a lad who had barely been out of Lincolnshire. We were driving along in my father's old Vauxhall Velox when, suddenly, I spotted it... a plume of white smoke among the rolling hills a mile or so away. Pleading with dad to see if he could get closer to such sights normally met with the reply that he was in a hurry for an appointment, but this time we were on holiday and, to my amazement, off we set in hot pursuit down a labyrinth of winding lanes.