Mr Samuel Lloyd Harvey with photographic evidence of his day trip to Killarney for 200 people from Frome and Radstock.

THOSE were the days.

Back in the summer of 1909 you could hop on a train from Frome or Radstock for a day trip to Killarney, Ireland. And it cost you just twenty-three shillings and sixpence. (£1.17).

The trip was the inspiration of Mr Samuel Lloyd Harvey, and, according to material collected by Radstock historian Mr Dennis Chedgy, several hundred people took advantage of his offer.

Mr Lloyd Harvey, who lived at 2 Foxhills, Radstock, and who died in 1952 at the age of 94, seems to have been one of the district's greatest and most delightful characters from all that was written about him.

There were few subjects that did not engage his attention and his pen — The St John's Ambulance Brigade, gardening, horse brasses, cycling, the Somerset dialect, local history, coins, writing newspaper articles and stories; he was interested in all this, and more.

He was a noted inventor, and designed a stretcher for rescue work in coal mines and the district's first horse-drawn ambulance.

Mr Lloyd Harvey spent much of his early life with the Great Western Railway, and was stationmaster of Welton and Midsomer Norton until he left the company in the late 1800s to work for the Radstock Coal and Wagon Company.

It must have been while he was working for this company that he conceived the glorious idea of the day trip to Ireland.

A writer in the Somerset Guardian of July 9, 1909 commented: "The express guaranteed day excursion to Killarney, Ireland, from this locality was the greatest feature ever attempted locally in the shape of day trips.

"The responsibility Mr S. Lloyd Harvey assumed in guaranteeing 200 passengers for such a long journey to a place practically unknown to residents in this district, except by reputation, was by no means a small one ..."

The Great Western Railway Magazine of August 1909, recorded that the special corridor train, bearing (slight difference in numbers here) more than 300 passengers, left Frome at 8.09 pm on Friday, July 2, and the passengers reached Killarney at 8.45 am the next morning, the scheduled time.

The excursionists spent eleven hours in Killarney, and reached their home stations only three minutes after the advertised time. By train and steamer, they had covered over 800 miles in 36 hours.

Mr Lloyd Harvey himself wrote: "In connection with the trip, arrangements on the Hotel-Coupon-ticket were made at Killarney, providing breakfast on arrival, drive of 20 miles to places of interest around lakes, and dinner on return, of which 76 patrons took advantage.

"The return sea trip (54 miles) per splendid GWR Turbine Steamer St George — off Rosslare 12.25 am Sunday — during the moonlight and dawn, was entrancingly beautiful."

Mr Harvey, as a man of such prolific interests and being much honoured during his life-time — he was made an Honorary Serving Brother of the Order of St John in 1913 - naturally had a great deal written about him and wrote quite a bit himself.