Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Shell Captains Tour Leicestershire

I recently organised a Coach Tour around Leicestershire for the Shell Fleet Retired Staff Association.

I had been approached to do this by the Honorary Secretary, Douglas Davidson of Corby.

The group, nearly 150 strong, were staying for the weekend at the Holiday Inn in Leicester, and wished to see something of the county on the Saturday.

It was necessary, of course, to arrange for three coaches, which Woods Coaches were pleased to do, and I had to arrange for another two Blue Badge Guides, so that there was one on each coach. Ken Wheatley and Alan Joyce helped out.

The three coaches set off on the Saturday morning (the hotel was very busy, as the Essex cricket team were also staying there and checking out that morning) and travelled Westwards to the famous Woodlands Garden Centre at Stapleton, near Market Bosworth, for coffee.

Then we moved round to Loughborough, where places had been booked on a train on the Great Central Railway, to include a buffet lunch. Everybody was enchanted as the train steamed down to Leicester North and back, crossing over Swithland Reservoir along the way.

Then it was back on the coaches for a ride through Charnwood Forest, via Woodhouse Eaves and Newtown Linford, and back to the hotel.

They all said what a great day it had been.