This year, the National Transport Trust is pleased to award two individuals with Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Charles Hudson MBE

In March 1959 Charles Hudson saw an advertisement in the Brighton Evening Argus for a meeting to consider the formation of a Lewes and East Grinstead Railway Preservation Society. Arriving after the meeting had started, he sat in the back row of the hall. At the end of the meeting the newly appointed membership secretary set up a table immediately behind Charles and thus he was ideally placed to turn round in his seat and place his pound on the table in exchange for receipt No. 1, making him the first fully paid up member of what, at the next meeting, would become the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society.

After an electrical engineering apprenticeship, he decided to become an ambulance driver, a vocation he followed for six years until electrical engineering reclaimed him, and he began a career in signalling with British Rail while already volunteering on the Bluebell.  Charles immediately set to work making good the inherited signalling apparatus at Sheffield Park to satisfy the inspector to grant a Light Railway Order and open Britain's first preserved full-size passenger-carrying railway for business in August 1960.

He set about overhauling what the Bluebell inherited once it reached Horsted Keynes, then establishing and obtaining what it needed for he was in an excellent position to be aware of and bid for any signalling equipment which British Rail was replacing with more modern technology, back then for not much more than a scrap ticket, and the Bluebell benefited hugely from this very convenient arrangement over the years.

Charles oversaw the complete and complex mechanical and electrical re-signalling scheme at Horsted Keynes signal box prior to the railway extending to Kingscote.  Here he was able to lead a team to install an historically important Southern Region "L" frame Westinghouse arrangement by obtaining enough of a mixed pedigree of suitable parts from the Dartmouth Railway and the National Railway Museum Collection among others. This box was commissioned in 2016 and will eventually also control the layout at East Grinstead and its current gated interface with Network Rail.  Charles is also planning for the replacement of the time-served signalling arrangements back at Sheffield Park, using the frame from the recently decommissioned Newhaven Town signal box.

Charles was awarded an MBE in November 1996 for services to St John Ambulance and in 2021 he received a special award from the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers in recognition of his contribution to minor railways signalling for over 60 years.  In his time with the Bluebell he has served on the Society's management committee for more than 55 years, and as a trustee for about the same length of time. That must amount to many hundreds of committee meetings, and he still attends monthly meetings as an interested vice president.

Heading the S&T Department for more than 60 years and ensuring a safe environment for the railway's operation, the contribution made by Charles Hudson to creating the Bluebell Railway we know today cannot be overstated, and he is after more than half a century of service an extremely worthy winner of this award.

David McNamee 45 years ago David was asked to take his Aveling and Porter steam roller down to his local village, Slaidburn, which is very close to the border of Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire.  It was on the occasion of the annual May Queen festival and after the event he parked the engine outside the village pub, the Hark to Bounty, where it attracted a great deal of interest.

A fellow steam enthusiast suggested that if David were bring the engine the following year, then he would bring his Clayton and Shuttleworth along too; another enthusiast was keen to bring his fairground organ and steam engine.  From these humble beginnings, the event has grown in size and popularity. Entry to the event is free with donations gratefully received and funds thus raised have benefitted local groups and organisations including the primary school, the parish church, Young Farmers, Slaidburn Silver Band and the bowling club.  Donations have also been given to North West Air Ambulance, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research.

As the event grew in both size and popularity, the temptation to move to a larger site was resisted, as it was felt it would thereby lose the local charm that had developed over the years.  Until this year the event took place in the car park of the village pub and adjacent land.  Now that the pub is up for sale the venue is the village green and the village hall, maintaining the essentially local flavour.

There are usually a dozen steam engines, anything up to 50 vintage and classic cars, and 40 vintage tractors, two of which are owned by David now that he has sold his steam roller.  There are also demonstrations of threshing and baling, basket weaving and clog-making.  As admission is free, it's difficult to know the exact number of visitors each year but it brings in visitors from far and wide, as well as being well established on the steam rally calendar.

To have not only started this event but to have remained in touch with it over so many years is a remarkable achievement, even more remarkable when you learn that David 's career was a a master mariner, and master mariners do not spend much time at home.  He has skippered supply boats in the North Sea, short sea freighters and Irish ferries.  Since retirement he keeps his hand in with the historic steam-powered the the Daniel Adamson.  A lifetime of achievement.