Dear All,

I realise that this may be off-topic, but please bare with me.

I am a final year student, reading history at the University of York. As
part of my degree I am currently researching a dissertation on "Public
attitudes to the decommissioning of London's Trams".

Whilst a good proportion of my research rests on primary and secondary
material at institutions such as London's Transport Museum, the National
Tramway Museum and the National Railway Museum - I am also keen to
intergrate real experiences into my writing.

I have, therefore, produced a questionnaire aimed at people who lived or
worked in London during the 1930s, 1940s or early 1950s and who remember
riding on trams, or noticed their demise. I am particularly interested in
hearing individuals' own reasons for the closure of tramways (ie: as
different from the "official" reason) - although any memories of trams
running on the streets of London will be very much appreciated.

I would be grateful if those interested in taking part could visit:
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~rsj100/trams/

and follow the links to the questionnaire. I have provided it in several
different formats in the hope that it will be accessible to all, although
anybody encountering problems accessing it should email me at


Even if you are too young to remember the trams or their closure, you may no
somebody who is old enough. In this case I would be grateful if you could
print the questionnaire and pass it on to them.

Finally, I should stress that any personal information will be used
anonymously for the purposes of writing the dissertation, and will not under
any circumstances be revealed to anybody else.

Thank you very much for reading this email - I look forward to receiving
some completed questionnaires.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Johnson
Student
University of York

P.S. I realise that some people consider such requests to be SPAM - however,
I hope you will be able to forgive me for the sake of this project.