Ian Allan obituary

In August 1939, however, [Ian Allan] was employed as a Grade 5 clerk at 15 shillings a week in the general manager's office at Waterloo. Working in the publicity section, Allan helped plan advertising and excursions while fielding telephone inquiries from the public. Many of these concerned det...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Guardian (London)
Main Author Glancey, Jonathan
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 05.07.2015
Subjects
Allan, Ian
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Summary:In August 1939, however, [Ian Allan] was employed as a Grade 5 clerk at 15 shillings a week in the general manager's office at Waterloo. Working in the publicity section, Allan helped plan advertising and excursions while fielding telephone inquiries from the public. Many of these concerned details of Southern locomotives. Allan hit on an idea. If he could collate essential information and all the numbers, and names, of the railway's locomotives, he could publish these as a booklet and thus inform and delight his fellow railway enthusiasts while making a profit for himself. Ian, son of George and Mary (nee Barnes) was born at Christ's Hospital, Horsham, West Sussex, where his father was clerk to the school. He was educated at St Paul's school, London. His favourite engine numbers, he said, were 909 (St Paul's) and 913 (Christ's Hospital), two of the Southern Railway's Schools class 4-4-0s. He left the Southern in 1945 to form his own publishing company, by which time he and Mollie Franklin, whom he went on to marry in 1947, had also founded the Locospotters' Club. When British Railways announced its 1955 modernisation plan, the club boasted 230,000 members, who took a pledge not to misbehave or otherwise trespass on railway property following wartime newspaper reports of spotters invading railway tracks.
ISSN:0261-3077