Keith’s Commentaries upon Lemon on Running Powers by Colin Keith
Author: Colin Keith
Publisher: Johns and Fairfield
Source book: Private Enterprise by Angela Thirkell (Barsetshire #16)
We meet Lemon on Running Powers in Summer Half when Colin Keith is fretting anxiously about living at home and not earning a living. Instead of reading with a view to becoming a barrister he gets a job as a Junior Master at Southbridge School. And then has dreadful second thoughts when he meets nice, but extremely successful, Noel Merton in whose chambers he was due to work.
Luckily Noel can't take Colin on until September so he passes an interesting (and sometimes happy) term at the school, mentored by senior boys Eric Swan and Tony Morland. Somewhat to Colin's astonishment Tony, youngest son of successful novelist Laura Morland, and a railway enthusiast since he was a small boy, is also studying Lemon. Tony says he finds some of the book a bit stiff but he expects Colin hasn't had a problem, but Colin admits that he too struggles with some of the details.
Lemon on Running Powers was the standard text on the running powers of railways on each other’s lines (such as the GWR and LNER joint line).
We learn that Colin, now a successful barrister, is working on his Commentaries in Private Enterprise. Lemon has been the standard work for some time and is in need of updating. When Colin isn’t being in love with pretty Mrs Arbuthnot in a very boring way, he is talking about railways in a very boring way. However, while Mrs Arbuthnot gets engaged to Francis Brandon, Colin at least has his book accepted by a well-known publisher: Johns and Fairfield.
In What Did it Mean? we discover that even Lord Pomfret has read Colin’s book. We never knew before that he was so interested in railways. Perhaps there is a railway line running across his land.
Lemon is presumably based on EJH (Sir Ernest) Lemon, an engineer who modernised the LMS railway.
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