A group of adults with learning difficulties from Melksham’s Shine Friendship Café has spent the day playing bingo whilst enjoying the Wiltshire countryside from their train seat thanks to local community rail partnership, TransWilts.
Fifteen adults, aided by support workers and volunteers, boarded the train at Melksham station for a fun tour of their local area. Along the way they played games of bingo, ably led by Great Western Railway (GWR) conductor, Henry-Arthur Freeman. They travelled to Swindon before heading to Westbury and then back to Melksham.
Melksham’s Shine Friendship Café is a weekly social space for adults with learning difficulties and their support workers, offering a fun session full of bingo and karaoke, as well as a quiet session.
Centre Manager for the café, Carolyn Fernandes, accompanied the group on their trip. She said: “It was a lovely day, very inclusive and everyone very much enjoyed the experience. They all enjoy bingo at Shine and so quickly got into the game, even helping Henry call the numbers. A couple of our members are transport enthusiasts and so were also very chuffed to be able to have a behind-the-scenes tour of the train.
“Everyone was very keen to take part in the fun and all the train staff were very pleasant and engaging. Now having been on the train in such a fun way, I think if any of the group needed to get another train for any reason it will have lessened their anxiety about travel in the future.”
“Having fun on the train is a great way to boost people’s confidence in travelling this way again,” explained Sophie Martin, TransWilts Community Partnership Manager. “By helping our local communities access Wiltshire’s railway lines we can help take the worries away from travelling and hopefully next time they need to head somewhere, they might look at whether they could do it by train again.”
The TransWilts Bingo Train was supported by GWR. Information on the Shine Friendship Café can be found on Facebook by searching for Shine Friendship Café or by emailing shinefriendshipcafe@gmail.com. For more information on TransWilts, visit www.transwilts.org
