Published: Sunday, 26th July, 2009 8:00am

Pupils do the locomotion

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Seraphina Rees, Alfie Clyne, Nicole Bayham, Amira Hogan and Callum Maskell.

CHILDREN were chuffed to have been at the naming of a new miniature steam train.

The locomotive was dubbed the Mary Seacole, after the Jamaican nurse who helped soldiers injured in the Crimean War.

Nia Clague, Key Stage 1 co-ordinator at St Michael's Primary School in Tilehurst, said: "Mary Seacole worked tirelessly for the soldiers on the battlefield and never seemed to run out of steam so hers seemed an appropriate name for a steam engine."

The 29 Foundation children, aged four to five, were invited to the naming on Friday by the engine's owner Robert Denton, whose wife Christine is a teaching assistant at the school in Dee Road.

Mr Denton said: "It is a model of a locomotive that was never named in real life.

"Most of the others were named after famous people from history but this one fell through the net.Mary Seacole wasn't recognised for her work for a long time but now she is." Mr Denton is a member of Reading Society of Model Engineers and he ran the 31/4 inch-gauge locomotive at the society's track in the south east corner of Prospect Park.

Mrs Clague added: "The society is absolutely lovely. They have invited us for several years now and the children always have a lovely time.

"All the children were very taken with the model railways inside and they thought the miniature trains were absolutely wonderful."