The Parcel
There was nothing particularly unusual about the parcel when it arrived.
It was addressed simply to ACI Model Railways and contained what appeared to be a small collection of old railway material: several photographs, loose papers, engineering notes and a badly worn leather-bound diary.
There was no useful information identifying the sender.
A short handwritten note had been placed inside.
I believe this belongs with you.
At first, there seemed little reason to question that assessment. The diary appeared to have belonged to a railway engineer named Arthur Cecil Ingram, whose name — sometimes written simply as A. C. Ingram — appeared repeatedly amongst the papers.
Much of the material was in poor condition. Several pages had suffered water damage, photographs had become stuck together and sections of handwriting were almost illegible. The collection was therefore set aside to be carefully dried, separated and examined.
That was when the first problem appeared.
The dates did not make sense.
Entries apparently written by the same man described railway locations and events separated by decades.
The photographs were worse.
Arthur Cecil Ingram appeared in several of them.
He did not appear to have aged.
Then we found an entry bearing a date that had not yet occurred.
At that point, what had arrived as a box of old railway papers became something rather different.
We began an archive.