Klondyke Mill Summer Steam Party 8-June-2008

[MARK RIGG]

I remember seeing Fowler RL `CYNORTHWYWR ` in Tanners threshing contractors yard at CAERSWS near Newtown in mid - Wales along with another Fowler RL 19338
which the late Frank Holl of Worcester bought . This was in about 1952 . Frank paid
£ 100 for 19338 and called her MONTY after the old county Montgomeryshire.

Everyone thought Frank mad to pay so much for an engine then when the going rate was about £ 25, but Monty is a very late engine on pressed on rubbers and had done nothing
except a few seasons threshing during the war, and prior to that its first owners were the Englefield Estate near Reading. It was only 20 years old and like new.

Tanners offered both Fowlers for about £150 but Frank wasn`t interested in CYNORTHWYWR because of its non-standard front wheels . These, we were told were supplied by Sentinel - what happened to the original wheels I don`t know . Frank did buy a Garrett Tractor from Tanners . Monty was retubed in Tanner`s yard and then driven back to Hartlebury, near Kidderminster, towing the Garrett.

My part in all this was as a young teenager sitting in the firebox, helping to knock the old tubes out and expanding the new ones in - the start of my apprenticeship in steam.

MARK
INDUSTRIAL CRANKSHAFTS LTD.
WOLVERHAMPTON.