Robert E. Jowitt

This book is fascinatingly different, for the author has a quite unorthodox view of European tramways and local customs and does not hesitate to say just what he is thinking. First reactions are that he is little outspoken at times and does not want us in the Common Market, but reflections shows that many of the comments are brutally true. It is a pity that the text is out of date in places and up to date in others...
the text does not really matter; this is really a picture book of European tramscape, loaded with all varieties of rolling stock, including the sort in mini-skirts, but always with a tramway environment. The photography is superb and very many of the scene just ooze atmosphere; one or two misfire through drunken verticals and excessive contrast that cannot reproduce properly, but we see the tram in its real surroundings and realize what we have left out of our own photographs. It is very hard to do justice to photographs in a couple of hundred words, so let us just say that we were very envious of his photos of Trams and Birds and Beasts. The sections on Trams and Humanity and Trams and Girls reveal the author as a photographer who likes trams rather than a tramfan who can take good photographs. Thank gooness he never took part in League tours, for he missed a rich source of incriminating photographs that none of us ever dared to take.
We thoroughly enjoy reading the book; we note some spelling mistakes and some minor errors, and we assumed that all the photos weree by the author. It would have been nice if a list of actual locations could have been included as an appendix, but we pretented that we could recognise most of them anyway. very strongly recommended, if only to show anglophiles that there are interesting trams and interesting people across the English Channel as well as in Blackpool and the Isle of Man. Tramway photographers should buy it just to see what is missing from their pictures; if you think your photos are good, then you really do need this book. (W.J. Wyse)… (meer)