Ernest Marples: The Shadow Behind Beeching

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In his first year of office, Marples opened the UK’s first stretch of motorway – the M1 from Watford to Rugby. Wasn’t the whole idea of the Beeching plan to try to make BR break even, something it never got close to doing even with all the loss making branches closed. By the end of the year Fraser was on the backbenches and in 1967 he quit politics altogether to become Chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board.

Brandon and Upham’s fresh review shows all sides of a complex man who might well have been a politician before his time.

This is an interesting book for anyone interested in both the early BR era and post-war British politics in general. Yes British Rail ran a fleet of horse box wagons and a supporting fleet of trucks, so you could literally send your horse by the BR parcel service prior to the Beaching reforms. The Inland Revenue was demanding that he pay back nearly 30 years’ back taxes on his residence in Eccleston Street, Belgravia, London, as well as Capital Gains Tax on his properties in Kensington. This file is claimed to be used under Wikipedia's policy for non-free content but has no explanation as to why it is permitted under the policy. Section 6, which listed "Passenger Services under Consideration for Withdrawal before the Formulation of the Report", included " Shrewsbury-Hartlebury", although Section 7, "Passenger Stations and Halts already under Consideration for Closure before the Formulation of the Report" included only stations and halts as far south as Northwood Halt in line with BR British Rail or British Railways's announced plans.

Except Labour only won a majority of four seats, but it was enough, and Ernest Marples at last left the Ministry of Transport to be replaced by Tom Fraser. Richard Beeching as Chairman of the BRB with a brief to recommend and implement the changes necessary to stem BR British Rail or British Railways’s rapidly growing losses. Early in 1975, he fled to Monaco, because of various legal actions and tax claims he faced, and he lived for the remainder of his life in France. com, that campaigned to have the UK Postcode dataset released as Open Data and drew threats of legal action by the Royal Mail against its founders.He was no stranger to controversy, as both his personal life and political career were rocked by scandals in his later years. He was however one of the first men in St Austell Cornwall to have a Volve 145 estate which he held onto thick and thin for many years. In this role Marples inaugurated the Premium Bond scheme and set about modernising the UK’s postal service and telephone network. Ernest Marples is too consequential a figure for his career to be judged on his favouring of roads over railways and end of career tax avoidance.