Presentation of FOHS first ever cheque

Photo Left to Right: Eric Igo, Cllr Jean Wharmby, Joy Hallsworth (FOHS Chair), Cllr. George Wharmby, Peter Kay and Jeff Mann. The man behind the camera is yours truly - Steve Bagshaw.

Sunday 2nd December saw the presentation to FOHS of a cheque for £200 from councillors George and Jean Wharmby. They have been long standing supporters of community railway groups and have in particular followed the fortunes of Friends of Glossop Station and lent them a helping hand along the way.  The source of the funding is Derbyshire County council's Community Leadership Fund, a scheme to provide small grants to community, voluntary, youth and other local organisations.  Its aim is to support worthwhile projects and initiatives that will benefit local communities.

Jean is the Chair of the High Peak and Hope Valley Community Rail Partnership which is a consortium of local authorities and transport providers including  Derbyshire County Council, Northern Rail, Transport for Greater Manchester, The Peak District National Park Authority and Cheshire East Council, along with community groups which share the common aims of promoting and enhancing rail transport services in the Hope Valley and High Peak areas of Derbyshire.  The Partnership is hosted by Derbyshire County Council.  Much of the area it covers area lies within the Peak District National Park.

This is the first cheque that FOHS has banked in its brief history, though another is in the pipeline. We are greatly indebted and thankful both to former councillor Peter Kay (second from right above) and to serving councillor Dave Wilcox, both of whom made the group aware of the available funding and of course to Jean and George for helping us to access some much needed cash that will help us in our work of enhancing the environment of the station..

Opening of the Heritage Trail - Sunday 27th May

Hi Folks,

I'm fully aware that the blog is a few posts behind but hopefully that will be rectified soon. Sunday 27th May saw the opening of the Heritage Trail in the station yard, which meant that we were unable to do any of our regular work that day. However, we did have a stall at the event, our very first public outing, at which we were simply looking for new contacts that might be interested in joining the FOHS group and also fundraising.

Happy to report that we had success with both. Members of the public made donations for old books that I had sourced or just made a donation anyhow because they were just glad we existed and from that we made £32.15p - our very first source of income. We also made about half a dozen new contacts whom we will be inviting to an inaugural meeting in the near future, as one of the next things we must do is set up a formal structure with Chair, Treasurer, Secretary etc.


The top picture shows the official opening with local dignitaries and celebrities all posing for me whilst I took my best shot! From left to right they are the High Peak Deputy Mayor Tony Kemp, Cllr. Anthony McKeown, our very own Joy Hallsworth who is also chair of the Hadfield & Padfield Heritage group, Derbyshire County Council leader George Wharmby and his wife Cllr. Jean Wharmby, Olympic hopeful Katie Byres and Apprentice contestant Adam Corbally.

From that information you can work out the line up in the second photo, except for the man in the sun hat who I recognise as local heritage historian and neighbour Roger Hargreaves.

Actually the main point of taking the photo was for you to view the foliage behind the Deputy Mayor. Only weeks before, that area had been mainly cigarette butts, bits of broken glass and weeds. In an unforseen way therefore, the work put in during recent weeks has created a much better backdrop for quite a major event in Hadfields recent history. Glad to play our part.