Portsdown and Horndean tramway finally gets out of lockdown | Nostalgia

However, it is available today from New To You Books in High Street, Cosham. The shop is open 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Saturday. You can reserve a copy by calling (023) 9232 1089.

I will be in the shop signing copies this afternoon but because of social distancing rules I will not be able to sign copies while you are there.

If you do want a personalised copy you can buy one in the morning, leave your name and I will sign it for you when I get there about 1pm. You can then pick it up later.

The book is in the popular ‘then and now’ format of the tramway that ran from Cosham to Horndean over Portsdown Hill via Waterlooville.

It then ran on a reserved track on the side of the London Road to Horndean. The line opened in 1903 and ran until closure 32 years later in 1935.

There are more than 80 photographs in the book – 40 ‘then’ and 40 ‘now’ – and if you are local you will know all the locations even though some have changed beyond recognition.

The majority of ‘then’ photographs have come from Barry Cox’s vast postcard collection and the ‘now’ pictures have all been taken by me.

As many of you know, I have a passion for compiling then and now montages. They are my favourite subject no doubt you will have witnessed by the many then and now pictures I have published in my columns over the years. The book costs £9.95.

• I published the picture from Celia Clark as she asked what it might be. You’ll find it on the foreshore at Langstone.

It turns out it is not a capstan but is in fact something called a rollerlead used in the dockyard for moving ships around jetties and docks.

Roy Brewster tells me a rollerlead does the same job as a fairlead and there are quite a few in the dockyard, used when guiding ships through locks and docks.

The end of the wire ran into a ship. It then ran around the roller and took turns around a bollard to give the wire a run clear of obstructions.

Roy adds: ‘Also, if you are pulling a ship out of dock or across the big basin using capstans, then they are really needed. Without them, as the ship came closer the turns on the capstan would ride up and jam the wire so they are an essential need for docking.’