Ann Middleton is commercial manager at Didcot Railway Centre

WE sometimes think of recycling as a modern phenomenon, but for our parents, grandparents and great grandparents it was a way of life.

They bought milk in glass bottles which were returned to the milkman, clothes were passed down in the family and then on to friends’ children, and Monday’s dinner was often made of leftovers from the Sunday lunch.

At Didcot Railway Centre we've recycled building material and even buildings from all over the Great Western Railway system.

Some of our early recycling projects were whole railway buildings, so we have the Cotswold stone station building from Heyford on the Oxford-to-Banbury line as a kit of parts waiting to be re-erected.

I have previously written about some of our smaller buildings, such as the little ticket office from Welford Park Station on the Lambourn Valley line and our signal boxes from Radstock and Frome in Somerset. Our Transfer Shed was an even bigger project that was recycled from the site of the main station car park.

With the modernisation of the railways there are not so many railway buildings left but on the other hand, the railway does not want to send materials to landfill, mainly because of the cost and landfill tax. This works in our favour and we have recently acquired a number of smaller buildings and materials, including a little weighbridge office building from Oxford as well as window frames and doors from the small brick building that used to stand at the bottom of Haydon Road and from the major redevelopment of Reading Station.

One of our earlier acquisitions was some platform slabs (dating from 1944) from the disused station at Eynsham, which closed to passengers in 1962. These served as our Main Line Platform on our Main Demonstration Line from 1984 until 2011 when we had to replace them because they were becoming unsafe. But in the true spirit of re-use, we saved the ones that were in the best condition and have re-used them to make a new platform for Antiquary, our railwayana and secondhand book shop.

In a more modern context we use a lot of old cotton rags for all kinds of things – cleaning engines, lighting fires, polishing brass, etc. Our volunteers kindly bring in old sheets, towels, and jeans which we cut up and use but we still have to buy rags from a commercial source.

If you are having a clear out, or know anyone who is, you can always bring your old cotton and linen rags to us and we will reuse them. It’s a double winner as it will also save us money.