February 19 letters: Remembering devotion of school rail fanatics

LIKE my former colleague Mr Alan Gill (The Yorkshire Post, February 9) I regret that no mention was made of Mr H Wilton Jones in your article on the railway memorabilia at Hall Cross Academy, Doncaster. I was a colleague of Wilton for about 20 years and a close friend for more than 40 years.

Wilton was a keen photographer and had a large collection of 35mm slides and 8mm cine film of steam locomotives and heritage railways which he donated to the National Railway Museum at York.

Another name that should be mentioned in connection with the “railway mania” at Doncaster Grammar School is William “Pip” Appleby (of BBC Singing Together fame).

He taught music at the Grammar School before he became Schools Music Adviser for the old county Borough of Doncaster Education Service.

Like Wilton Jones he was a “railway fanatic” and in the garden of his house on Thorne Road he had a model railway layout complete with holes in the house wall so that the trains could run into the house.

I would also like to point out that Tony Peart was an old boy of the school and not a teacher at the school.