The Flying Scotsman comes to town, Saturday 6th January 2024

Coming full circle: Richmond’s Centenary Year

It is not often that we get the chance to complete a full circle of special events but this is what has happened as a result of two coinciding Centenaries. Both The Flying Scotsman engine and RSCDS celebrated 100 years in 2023. In February 2023 the engine began a Centenary Tour at Waverley station in Edinburgh with teams of dancers on the platform performing the ever popular dance beside this celebrity steam train. In December the train’s tour came to an end with the engine spending Christmas and New Year at Locomotion, the National Railway Museum in Shildon in the North East of England. What an unexpected opportunity for members of Richmond Branch RSCDS to celebrate the visit by also dancing The Flying Scotsman beside the steam engine which inspired it!

Without a lot of time to plan ahead but with the co-operation of Branch members and thehelpful museum staff, a team of eight dancers came together – winter coats, shoes and woolly hats much in evidence – to dance The Flying Scotsman with pride and enthusiasm beside the engine at Locomotion Museum. The many visitors who had come from far and wide to see The Flying Scotsman were surprised to see our spontaneous performance but soon took up the invitation to join in the dancing, not forgetting to add to the chorus of train sound effects as we all slipped up and down the ‘platform’!

~Joy Bradshaw