Martin Farebrother is retired, after working in South East England hospitals as a general and chest physician. Martin has always been interested in railway history and contemporary transport policy, and his wife Joan in architecture and industrial archaeology. He and Joan owned a cottage in the Pas-de-Calais département from 1990. Interest in the closed railways in that area led to their first railway book, Tortillards of Artois: The meter Gauge Railways and Tramways of the Western Pas-de-Calais (Oakwood Press, 2008). During research into this they became interested in the area to the east, which was the First World War Arras Sector of the front line, and since then more generally in narrow gauge railways in France and Belgium.
Joan Farebrother is retired, after working in South East England hospitals as a senior pharmacist. Joan has always been interested in architecture and industrial archaeology, and her husband Martin in railway history and contemporary transport policy. She and Martin owned a cottage in the Pas-de-Calais département from 1990. Interest in the closed railways in that area led to their first railway book, Tortillards of Artois: The meter Gauge Railways and Tramways of the Western Pas-de-Calais (Oakwood Press, 2008). During research into this they became interested in the area to the east, which was the First World War Arras Sector of the front line, and since then more generally in narrow gauge railways in France and Belgium.
