James Guacamole - The Singer and Guitarist

It only took one innocent mid-summer visit, at the tender age of 9, to the now dis-used Hollington Railway just outside Sevenoaks in Kent for James to establish his now well known and often ill-respected fascination with railways and the engines that travel on them.

Partly due to his boy-hood introspective and introverted persona, he was left sidelined in his early years in more ways than one. At school he was shunned by his piers for his unorthodox and perculiar playground activities which would usually culminate in James 'cleaning his boiler' in the 'engine shed' after a noisey display of James' interpretation of the 4.26 from Hollington to Hastings. Whilst enjoying watching James' express train impressions in the playground, his mannerisms and lack of any natural sporting skill always left him last to be picked for the sports teams by his fellow schollars. In fact one of his early aqauintances around this time remembers that having James on their team meant that the team was usually given a 5-0 head-start in football to compensate for his hinderences.

When James reached 13, an infamous birthday party was held on the Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Station with James being offered a ride in the cab of a British Railways Stanier 8F, 2-8-0, which resulted in him driving the engine back from Rye Station..............or so he claimed. Kenny Simms, who was in the same class at school remembers James with a certain amount of amusement and adds 'that 13th birthday story was just another load of ol' shit where he was tryin' to impress people. Why any of us would be impressed with him blowin' out candles with his imaginery friends at Dymchurch Station, Christ knows! Any case, I see him in the Wimpy in Gravesend the day he was s'posed to be there'. Further investigation on our part, involving a call to the Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Adiministration Office established that 'at no time have childrens birthday parties been conducted on, or near, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Station. The proposition that a child can operate a B.R. Stanier 8F is quite laughable, if the story wasn't so sad'.

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