WHEN Father Christmas distributed toys from his bulging sack in times gone by, the girls had the dolls and the boys had the train sets, writes Don Chambers.

That was the way of things in my boyhood, at least. But while the little metal carriages and railway engines might well have been discarded in later years, for some the experience may have triggered a life-long interest in locomotives.

Ralph Charles, a pal of mine since our days at Abergavenny's King Henry Vlll Grammar School, has developed an enveloping interest and with it expertise in rail travel.

In fact, he was known in school as Chuff Chuff Charlie in keeping with steam travel in the early days of his passion for the railways that passed through Abergavenny.

He reminded me of the good old days of the iron horses at an Abergavenny and District Steam Society display at St Michael's Centre to commemorate the last train from Brecon Road Junction to Merthyr on January 5, 1958.

Ralph and our schoolmate Dickie Dawkes would march off to the Rope Walk near Monmouth Road station to see the locomotives, especially the Plymouth to Manchester express trains as they rattled through.

After leaving KHGS Ralph, who was born in Princess Street in 1937, later did his National Service in the Royal Air Force. He married Hazel, from The Bryn where they now live, in 1964.

But even during their courtship, Hazel fondly recalls, they once ended up at a railway yard where old engines were being broken up. Such is the romance of the old days of steam.