WHAT a great time we had at the Didcot Street Fair.

It seems a long time ago now but it was only the last evening in November.

We started thinking about what we might do a little while ago and one of our volunteers, Frank Dumbleton, suggested that we bring our pump trolley to the parade.

I must admit we had a few doubts, but Frank said he would get it all sorted out and he did – well done Frank.

The pump trolley was restored and has been in the expert care of the Great Western Society's Taunton Group for many years so the first challenge was to get it to Didcot.

With the help of many people it came on a trailer and we put it into storage until the street fair.

Then we had to think about how to display it in the parade.

We couldn’t lay rails for the evening, so our thanks to Dave Aram for providing a tow car and the expertise to haul the trolley.

The trolley was lifted slightly on its trailer so the driven axle could spin and two of our younger volunteers – Steven and Logan – volunteered to pump it.

A team of volunteers – Scott, Penny, Pat and Fran – carried the Didcot Railway Centre sign in the parade.

We were so pleased to win the Best Group award and it was great to receive the certificate from Jackie Billington, Mayor of Didcot.

We also had a stall at the fair, staffed by Betty, and it was lovely to meet many of our local community there.

The trolley brought back memories of how we used it at Didcot many years ago and one of our volunteers, Maurice, reminisced about using the pump trolley some time in the 1970s when we were extending the site track from the point near the lifting shop out though the original site fence towards the present location of Radstock signal box before Didcot halt was constructed.

The trolley has temporarily gone back into storage until we can arrange to get it back to the railway centre.

It’s a bit too big to come through the subway and up the stairs so we will bring it in by rail.

The plan is to store it in a shed by the branch line station which was built by Steven, one of our volunteers, to store our Wickham Trolley.

There should be enough room to store the Pump Trolley too.

It's an important part of our history and we are working on plans to display it and also to see whether it will be possible for visitors to see it in use in future.