THOSE of you old enough to remember Bronco Lane on the telly and Jimmy Young with a full head of hair will cherish the memory of the old-style seaside holiday.

Back then, of course, it wasn't just the thought of rain, biting wind and sandstorm-lashed legs. Or the delicious prospect of chips fried in lard and a piece of cod the size of a pike. Oh no. These were but mere fripperies, icing on the cake that we call pleasure.

For there was something else. And as you are so kindly allowing me to continue in this culinary mode for a moment, I might as well introduce the aperitif to this sumptuous spread of maritime delights I am about to spread before you.

The train journey. Yes, that glorious preliminary to every 1950s holiday, featuring a landscape of elms and hedgerows and all glimpsed from railway carriages smelling of Wills' Wild Woodbines and egg sandwiches.

And ne'er any asphalt gash of a motorway to be seen.

How I remember the taxi calling at the house, all big, black and shining. The driver would be wearing a shabby, greasy suit, frayed collar and tie, topped off with a trilby hat worn at the obligatory cheeky angle.

He'd speak through a Senior Service plain, firing ash and bright blue smoke in all directions. "Where to, Guvnor?" he'd wheeze. "Rugby Midland Station please," said my Dad, pausing only to relight his pipe and smother us all with the inevitable fall-out.

Once inside the taxi, the smell of sun-heated leather, tobacco and polished walnut dashboard sent the senses reeling.

The journey itself was too short for our liking. Up the lane we would go, down the dip where we used to go sledging in January, along the main road and then into town. Now a place of faded grandeur, Rugby Midland was once the biggest junction in Britain, exceeding even Diana Dors' Swindon for sidings, good yards, sheds and all the paraphernalia connected with the glories of steam.

After walking up the ramp, the traveller would enter a parallel universe of buildings and platforms packed with people. Huge black machines hissing steam and smoke swept in with regal bearing, like the despots of some far-off lands greeting their subjects.

But above all, the abiding impression was the all-enveloping sense of urgency as carriages disgorged their human cargo.

And it was the smell. Just how do you explain to the uninitiated how intoxicatingly addictive was the enchanting aroma that was known as Extract Of Railway Station?

How does one convey the utter bliss of grimy locomotives, the whiff of sulphur, the itchiness caused to the backs of bare legs by the seats in the second-class compartments?

Pictures of Loch Lomond, antimacassars to prevent brylcreemed heads from staining the seat backs. Flower borders in country stations that spelled a name in geraniums and marigolds. Nottingham Castle. Skegness is SO bracing...

It was another age. A former lifetime. Possibly a different planet. Very few people under 40 could possibly attempt even a mental picture of what would be the protracted death rattle of the steam age. We baby-boomers were to witness the last gasp of Stephenson's brainchild.

But poor old Foregate Street. Pitiful, tattered Shrub Hill. How cruel the passage of the years has been to these once great stations in the city of Worcester. Time has not mellowed you. There's faded and there's faded, but these two examples of the golden age must be fairly typical of Britain's decaying railway stations.

Foregate Street, in particular, is a sad reminder of better days. Grubby paintwork, junk food cartons blowing along the platform and on to the track.

A cavernous entrance that seems to say abandon hope all ye who enter here.

It is impossible to resist the temptation to give Foregate Street a mental make-over. Thoughts invariably turn to how it must once have looked. It does not take a great leap of imagination to picture throngs of Edwardian passengers, many being assisted by squads of willing porters, perhaps to be escorted to the Star Hotel just over the road.

People watchers of the early 1910s might have seen a whole host of toffs, the turn-of-the-century equivalent to Posh 'n' Becks, Sir Eltons, the Kylies and the Ronans.

But look at these places now. Alighting from the grim, drab and downright unwelcoming portals of Foregate Street, we encounter the fume-filled street from which the station takes its name. Litter and graffiti are never far away.

Then there's Shrub Hill, which is marginally better, having apparently received the attentions of a paintbrush at some stage during the last century. Although one is spoiled for choice as far as taxis are concerned, should the wayfarer be obliged to travel by Shanks' Pony, then the route will possibly take him or her past St Paul's Hostel.

Before the wasteground opposite this building received the attentions of developers, it was the haunt of ciderheads and druggies who liked nothing better than hurling abuse at passers-by, and especially so if they were female. Yes, welcome to Worcester.

We know recreating the past is not feasible. However, do our railway stations really have to look like something out of a Siberian gulag? Must they all appear to be stopping-off points for a penal colony or something?

I fully realise that the halcyon days of railway travel are gone forever. The internal combustion engine, universal air travel and broadened horizons have seen to that. A package to the Costas cannot be compared to two weeks in Skegness or Minehead during works shutdown in August.

But a little top-dressing, just for appearance's sake, definitely wouldn't come amiss. It's remarkable what a lick of paint, a spot of litter collection and a few hanging baskets can do for a place.

For this is what needs to be done if Worcester is to attract more of the travelling public. And that, in other words, means tourists who would prefer to travel by train rather than by road.

It should be borne in mind that one-in-three adults doesn't drive a car. These are the clientele that the rail companies should be targeting. But to do that, the stations must be brightened-up.

And as there is no time like the present, perhaps a start should now be made to woo back the great British travelling public.

You never know. Perhaps they might be convinced that rail travel could still be an attractive alternative to gridlocked Britain.