Me particularly - from the Deep South!

FNE drops through my letter box - I read with interest the regular broad selection of articles in an excellently-produced prize-winning Society magazine for what, after all, is a fairly esoteric subject.

Apart from a brief visit to my sister-in-law in Edinburgh I had never been North of the Border before retirement although I had been to Edinburgh, Perth and Stirling - in Australia. Retirement gave me the opportunity to do what I wished I had been doing for the previous 30 years - travel - and we have about a dozen trips to the other hemisphere under our belts.

For many years my passion had been North Wales, first viewed from the seat of a tandem which a pal and I had bought for £10 and then subsequent regular visits with the local mountaineering club. We never got as far as Scotland. North Wales was probably far enough in the back of a old short-wheelbase Land Rover and before motorways.

A partial retirement to Wales, commuting by the Irish Mail did not work out, a new home to our own design down South and a very large garden proving a bigger draw.

But then an opportunity as a Tour Manager for a niche travel company specialising in Tours to Scotland arose and so it was, that "Your Experienced Tour Manager" (who had never been further north than Edinburgh) found himself with 52 passengers bound for Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland. It was the largest and most difficult party I encountered - but I survived - and completed the tour with as many people as I started. (Rule 1!)

Over the next 20 years I throughly enjoyed escorting parties to the Highlands, Northern and Western Isles, tours often including the Far North Line. Most of my passengers were my age and had been all over the world - but few to a Scotland for which I hope I was able to enhance their experience. On several of my trips on the FNL I met Frank and Kate, and their two small children on the train. They must have introduced me to the FoFNL. With an application form?

QED!

I assume that most members are locals who have more reasons for the health of the FNL than us "foreigners" but we all applaud and support the officers of the FoFNL in their efforts towards the line's survival and improvement and their credible contacts with the parties that matter.

This article gives us the opportunity to mention Frank's very readable 2014 book about his experiences. Although apparently out of print, it can easily be found online.