The odds were stacked against him but Goobie has found a train. Since Cyprus doesn’t have a railway, we wondered whether the days were numbered for his train obsession. Not a chance. Clearly absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Goobie named the train ‘Mr No.1 Train.’ It has a nice ring to it, I think.

Mr No.1 Train sits on a little plinth outside Famagusta’s old railway station. For an engine, he’s a little thing, but I felt fond of him because he meant so much to Goobie. Goobie spent ages looking at the pistons (‘Do you mean ‘push-rods’ Mummy?’), the coupling hook and the buffers. He then climbed into the cab to look at the firebox. Yes, I’m showing off – I know my train lingo.

If it wasn’t for Mr No.1 Train, it wouldn’t have been obvious that this was the starting point for the Cyprus Government Railway. The railway ran 76 miles across the island to Evrychou, near the Troodos Mountains and closed in 1951.  The old station building was shuttered up and not in use any more. The shutters were brown, instead of green, but the architecture was the same as the station at Evrychou.

We walked around the back of the building and discovered the derelict engine sheds. A building attached to them still had the original green shutters on it. High up in the engine sheds we were watched by a Little Owl. I’ve never seen a wild owl before and Little Owls are my favourites. I was insanely excited.

Goobie’s attention had been caught by the two-metre length of track outside one of the sheds, leading to a loading crane. A bit further along was a pump for filling the trains with water. At the back of the station building was old office furniture and benches – some of them looked old enough to be the originals.

Famagusta really is one big museum.  I can’t think of anywhere else where you can still find things lying around that have just been left for 50 years. The railway closed over 20 years before the war in 1974 and yet nothing much seems to have been done with the old station. It feels trapped in time – like much of Famagusta.