Saundersfoot and District Historical Society opened its new season last month with the help of a distinguished old friend. To be formally accurate, the Rev. Dr. Martin Connop Price came to share his fascination with railway tickets, dealing with this rather off-beat subject in an experimental and innovative way. Martin has a huge collection of railway tickets to a huge number of destinations and he distributed many of these (temporarily, of course) among his audience. Thus, he was able to bring out many of their (the tickets, of course) peculiarities by answering the questions that presented themselves as members viewed these many and varied tickets, and what a variety there was! Tickets for adults, dogs, bicycles and more, there were singles and returns as well as ancient and modern, and in spite of all this variety, they were all made in the same basic image as each other. When one considers what a large amount of information needs to be displayed on those small pieces of card, one begins to realise that the technology in producing them is considerable and must have posed quite a problem when tickets were originally devised during the first half of the 19th century. The earliest tickets were handwritten, as had been their stagecoach predecessors. As long ago as 1792, one Thomas Edmondson organised handwritten cards for tickets, but having lost his 'day job' with Gillows, sheer economics forced him into developing a better system of issuing tickets for the rapidly growing railway network. So, by 1838, he had produced the standardised format which was in general usage by 1843 and the business he then set up lasted right through the 20th century. From the history of the comparatively modern, humble railway ticket, the society takes a huge leap backwards through time to that of Tutenkhamun on October 20 when Mr. John Collier will be sharing his considerable knowledge of the subject. Then, from the sublime to the other thing, in November, members are going on a metaphorical, not actual, pub crawl from Narberth to Saundersfoot with Mr. Keith Johnson, and that, believe it or not, brings them to the Christmas season when once again they will be having their social get-together at the Wisemans Bridge Inn. Tickets for this at £6 each will be available at the next meeting and numbers will be limited. Go prepared, then, to the next meeting on Wednesday, October 20, at 7.30 pm, in the Regency Hall, Saundersfoot, to meet each other and particularly Mr. Collier and hear all about Tutenkhamun.