THE FIRST essay I ever wrote at the age of nine was on the last London trams. I felt sad that these mournful looking vehicles should be scrapped after serving the capital so long.

That was in 1952 and trams lingered in a few places after that although Brighton discarded its fleet earlier in 1939. The prevailing wisdom was that they got in the way of other traffic. They were scrapped all over Britain until in the end there was only one town that retained them.

That was Blackpool where they are as much a tourist attraction as a means of transport.

In continental Europe some cities kept their trams and modernised the system. Soon after seeing the last London trams grind their way into the Kingsway subway near the Thames, I went to stay with my Dutch grandmother in The Hague, capital of the Netherlands. There the old trams had been replaced with a fleet so smooth running that some people complained of feeling slightly seasick.

But the trams that terminated near the main post office still kept a letterbox on the front so that the post could be unloaded at the end of the line.

France was like Britain in scrapping most trams early in the last century but has seen a huge revival. There are 22 cities with networks now and more are being built while several systems are being extended. In January I went to Nice on the French Riviera which introduced a highly successful line a few years ago. Just before I arrived, a second route was opened linking more areas with the centre including the airport. A third line has also started running.

It is now possible to board a tram at this airport for one and a half euros and arrive 20 minutes later in the main shopping street. A taxi would cost about 35 euros as I found to my cost in arriving on the one day on which the French unions had gone on strike in Nice as part of their long battle with central government over pensions.

Trams are regarded highly by the French. The mayors of Montpellier and Bordeaux regarded their networks as the crowning achievements of their political careers. Not surprisingly, most of the tram cities in France are big like Lyon, but not all. Rouen in Normandy, perhaps the closest to us, has a population of just 111,000, less than that of Brighton, although it has another half million living nearby.

They are not cheap to build. I went to see the Rouen tramway soon after it had opened with some Brighton councillors and they whistled with astonishment on hearing the short initial stretch had cost £36 million. They would faint dead away now knowing that the Nice tramway has cost £700 million.

But it is highly popular and is attracting all sorts of lucrative industry along its outer reaches. A typical bus journey in Brighton costs £2.70 but in Nice you can buy a carnet of ten tickets for a euro each. The cities that bring in trams are given substantial support by central government. They are generally welcomed by the travelling public. And what about British trams? There are networks in cities like Newcastle and Manchester while closer to home there is the service in Croydon. But there is no great enthusiasm for trams in Britain and the battles here are over high speed trains rather than whether we should follow the French on trams.

Brighton is probably not quite big enough for modern trams. But the original vehicles lasted as long as the service itself – almost 40 years. They were capable of carrying huge numbers of passengers and on race days would take 30,000 punters up the steep hill to the course. The network covered most of central Brighton but not the seafront or Western Road. Trolleybuses, which succeeded trams between 1939 and 1961, followed the same pattern and it provides the basis for today’s bus services.

Brighton’s buses are probably the best in Britain outside London and transport experts say trams would not be satisfactory as a replacement for some routes. They believe the number of passengers would not be sufficient to support lines outside the city centre so that passengers travelling west might have to change on to buses at Palmeira Square. But there could be a case for trams running from Brighton Marina to the Palace Pier, a route long coveted by campaigners for a monorail. They could also continue along the seafront to Shoreham Harbour, taking much of the traffic congestion out of the A259. Today’s trams are far removed from the drab double deckers with their notices imploring passenger not to spit. They are attractive, efficient and fast, providing public transport fit for the 21st century. I hope some young pupil will soon write an essay on the first new Brighton trams.