NEW JULY 2021.  This is a card-covered book in landscape format entitled 'Seaside and Countryside in East Anglia'. It was issued by the GER. No date is given, but it must have come out around 1920 because it contains a reference to Ypres and the Belgian battle fields.

Ostensibly a guide book, the important features of its 60 pages are the 26 superb full-page coloured pictures which you are likely to enjoy. These serve the same purpose as the views on the posters which adorned the stations, and on the set of prints which were in every carriage compartment - to drum up business, by persuading the viewers that they would like to buy a ticket to go there.

The pictures here are in a slightly earlier style than the ones most people are familiar with: more Edwardian with an occasional hint of Impressionism rather than the Art Deco ones of the 1930s. Locations covered include Southend, Maldon, Clacton, the Stour at Harwich, Felixstowe, on the Orwell, Aldeburgh ferry, Blythburgh church, Southwold from Walberswick, Lowestoft harbour, a Broadland creek, Great Yarmouth, Gorleston, Cromer, Mundesley, Sheringham, the Cambridge Backs, inside Ely cathedral, Hunstanton and GER ships at Parkeston Quay.

The other pages in the book are monochrome. Most have at least one illustration which is either a photograph or perhaps a photograph-style drawing, rather than a black and white line drawing. These pages also contain some text but it does not relate directly to the coloured print immediately opposite, so in this file the pages are presented in sequence one at a time.

The book finishes with a mention of travel from Parkeston to the Continent. It refers to the Belgian and Luxemburg Ardennes, a region which the GER claims the credit for opening up to the British - see File RG042, a GER guide from 1890. Folded in at the back is a map depicting the Continental connections of the GER.

There is one confession to make: pages 6 and 7 are missing, or to put it another way one coloured picture has been cut out of the only book available for scanning. This was not discovered until the scanning was in progress, and close inspection showed how skilfully it had been done. There is no index or contents list so there is no way of knowing what has been lost, but it is felt that the other 26 pictures alone are still well worth the price.

The file is provided with a bookmark to every coloured plate. It will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.