A Film Called Happiness by Jon Seagrave / Jonny Fluffypunk
You are fifteen years old. It is 6 in the morning and it is February; it is pitch dark and freezing cold, and you are huddled foetal, shivering in a thin sleeping bag on the seat in a compartment of an ancient railway carriage parked up for the night in the deserted, unlit platform at Thurso station. The end of the line, the far north of Scotland, the most northerly point of the British railway network. And don’t you know it- the sky is blacker than black, the windows of the carriage rimed with ice, inside and out.
There are four of you. You broke into this train at midnight; four fifteen year olds, full of chips and glowing from under-age beer drunk in a pub that couldn’t care less, in possession of a purloined carriage key. You came up here yesterday, across the vast and empty moorland on this train, and you will head back south on this train at daybreak, and now you are sleeping on this train, or trying to sleep in the bitter chill. For the past four days trains have been your home; they will be your home for the next three, too. 650 miles away, on the outskirts of London, your mother is wondering where the hell you are and what you are doing.
And what you are doing is bashing, which your mother finds difficult to understand. This is your life. You are a Basher, and you are in the (self- appointed) top tier of railway cranks. To the outside world- the normals- you are just another ‘trainspotter’, but you are not a trainspotter. Merely seeing trains and noting their numbers is not enough. You are a basher, and you are all about haulage, about riding behind a locomotive, about racking up the mileage; the beast has to work for you to earn it’s red-pen underline in the hallowed BR Motive Power Pocket Book. And it doesn’t stop at that underline, oh no: clear that loco for 100 miles, for 500, for a thousand… there is no end to this chase, no end to life on the bash.
And here in Thurso, at the head of the short rake of carriages, silhouetted a English Electric Class 37 diesel-electric locomotive. Nicknamed ‘Tractors’ for their throaty, throbbing engine sound and their suitability for any job, from express passenger to Welsh valleys coal train. Twenty-two-year-old filthy blue-and-yellow beasts like this are your passion. You travel the length and breadth of the country in pursuit of them. It is class 37s that for now bring the thrills, the joy, the let-downs and the heartbreak that soon enough will be brought by girls and bands and politics, but not yet. You don’t know it, of course, but you have 10 months left to go before this all becomes your slightly embarrassing past.
In half an hour the Thurso train-crew will arrive; they will nod you a gruff hello. They know you’re not meant to be here, but in 1985 railway cranks are part of the everyday of rail-workers’ lives; you’re eccentric but harmless- dossing on locked-up frozen trains is just the sort of thing you do, and for the most part no-one gives a toss, and you’re just left to get on with it. And soon enough daylight will grow in the east, and the engine will splutter and cough into life, and the steam-heat will drift up from under the seat to slowly warm your frozen body, and then passengers- the normals- will invade your little world and then- with a horn-blast and a roar of engine-thrash- you’re away, with you hanging out the front window, filling your hair with diesel-smoke. And four hours later you will be pulling into Inverness, and you will have racked up another 150 miles behind a class 37, and it will all have been worth it.
Your passion is relentless. Day after day, train after train. You make desperate leaps between split-second connections, endure rancid ‘festers’ in cold waiting rooms, all in pursuit of more Tractor mileage in the book. You get word-of-mouth info from other cranks. You make calls from remote phone boxes to contacts in BR Control. You are ever- hungry for the golden prize of insider knowledge- the ‘Gen’. And when you’ve got the gen, then it’s out with your ‘Bible’ (the two-inch-thick British Rail 1985 All Line Timetable, 4-point font on rizla-thin paper). Then the frantic working out of ‘moves’, whole working timetables etched into your memory. Then scrambling at a moment’s notice from Exeter up to Edinburgh, from Bridge of Orchy down to Bristol, all because some monstrously ‘big’ freight-only 37 has wound up diagrammed on a summer cross-country relief. And when that thrashing, growling monster pulls into the platform there will be dozens and dozens of you who have made it there from all corners of the country to greet it, all alerted through some magic of pre-digital bush telegraph, all succumbing to the irresistible pull of itsblack-hole gravity.
In 1985, there are thousands of people like you. Tens of thousands, even. They are not all old men in anoraks, like the few cranks you still see occasionally in 2025- the last dying remnants of railway enthusiasm, gamely clinging to what-once-was against the backdrop of a ravaged and decimated privatised rail system. In 1985 you are for the most part young and you can be anyone- there are cranks who are punks, cranks who are skinhead bootboys, cranks who are soul-boys, mods, or footie casuals, cranks who are metal-heads or goths. There are black cranks and Asian cranks and female cranks, though admittedly they are few. But even amongst the vastly-predominant Young White Males, all the outside-world rivalries- all the divisions of music and class and race and sexual orientation, of north vs south, all are put aside in pursuit of trains. Gen, moves, carriage compartments and waiting rooms are all shared freely, regardless of haircut or accent or tightness of trouser.
Inside-world rivalries, of course, abound: train spotters are the pits, you’re all agreed on that, all you who have turned your back on the static passivity of the platform end in favour of the Great Hunt, the intoxicating chase of bashing. But then what to Bash? You, you’ve self-identified as an English Electric man, through and through, committing to the pursuit of locomotives built by that stalwart Newton-le-Willows manufacturer, with their distinctive engine sounds and classic stylings not just class 37s, but also class 20s, 40s, 50s, and that refinement straightaway puts you way above the bash-anything-that-moves ghettoes of the NED (‘New Engine Desperado’) and the Insect (all day back and forth the same few miles between Birmingham’s New St and International, or Edinburgh’s Waverley and Haymarket), slaves both to the red pen underline, to quantity over quality. And- in your mind at least- it puts you way above the ‘Peak’ bashers, the ‘Rat’ bashers, and all others dedicated to what you-correctly- perceive as lesser breeds of motive power. And above all of you, at the top of the tree, the ‘main men’, the ones who’ve been at it for years, for decades even, men who started on steam; the 24/7 train-tramps, perpetually on the move, with wild hair and unidentifiable income-streams and airs of rightful superiority, the ones who’ll talk to no-one with less than a quarter-million miles on the clock, the Kings of the Rails.
And you dream of being a Main Man one day, with a beard and an eccentric overcoat and your life in a battered Gladstone bag, but for now you’re still one of the aspiring rabble, one of the thousands, with your Adidas bag graffitied with the numbers of your fave machines and stuffed with your Bible, your moves books, a jumper or two and a pair of pants. Day after day of strip- washes in swaying train bogs, snatched sleep hunched in seats under strip- lights, 3am ‘bailing’ at some freezing junction followed by a hellish ‘fester’ on a windswept platform; this is how you live. Hanging from carriage door droplight windows, drunk on the roar of engine-thrash, flailing arms, bellowing whoops in salute to the thundering machine up front.
You’ve had 37’s to Skegness. 37’s to Aberystwyth, 37’s to Blackpool and Yarmouth and the Devon coast. You’ve had 37’s to Mallaig and Thurso and Wick, to Oban and Ayr. In 1985 as a 15 year old boy you rack up 35,000 miles on the rails. Every school holiday is a week’s All-line Rover here, a Freedom of Scotland ticket there (sixteen quid for the latter; unlimited travel for even days); every weekend you’re off and away. Rail travel’s cheap in ‘85, but for you it’s even cheaper: the basher is a black-belt at ‘effing it’, a dab hand at the art of dubious validity, and you are no exception – deftly doctoring date-stamps with brake-fluid and milk. On a crowded summer Saturday express, with an overworked guard and every vestibule chocka with window- hanging bashers, then a quick flash of an out-of-date North Wales Rover will get you all the way to Newcastle.
Well, most times it will. But just as every cartoon hero must have their nemesis, so yours are the TTI’s, the Travelling Ticket Inspectors, all big black overcoats and hawk-eyes, the gestapo of British Rail. Like you, perpetually on the move. Like you, wedded to the rails. These are hardened men, veterans who give no quarter; grim-faced, vengeful men, primed to spot your fudged date-stamp at 100 yards.. They hate you, all of you, and they want you off their trains. All have nicknames: Loose- Irons. The Purple Mask. Granville of the London Midland, who’d once spot-fined his own mother, and once went rogue in a Welsh market town, storming out into the street, demanding valid tickets from a chip-shop queue. You fear the TTI’s. You all do. You have had a TTI rip your dodgy Scottish Rover to bits in front off you, then throw you out in the rain at Falkirk High, a teenage boy, ticketless and skint and hundreds of miles from home.
But does it put you off? Not for a minute. It’s all part of the great railway adventure, and you wouldn’t swap it for anything. None of it- not the TTIs, the freezing nights, the dossing in your clothes, the filthy hair stinking of diesel fumes; not the diet of chips and Travellers-Fare sarnies, not the fitful sleeps, not the ‘leaps’ for connections at three in the morning. It’s all worth it, all of it, every glorious moment. For you don’t know it yet but you will come to think of these days as some of the best days of your life, your most favourite days, your carefree days, the days before girls, the days when joy and despair were in the hands of simple lumps of metal, and you rattled through the summers with the windows down, your head sticking out, you drinking in the distant engine-thrash, the engine-thrash that could be the soundtrack to a film you could make of all of this, a film you’d call, simply, Happiness.
Category: History
Gordon and ‘The Flyer’
Inside the Gloucester shed, Gordon was not a happy engine.
–I am a large, strong blue engine, he moaned, whilst his driver fussed around him, oiling his joints and polishing his brass with a greasy cloth, –I know what is best for me and I simply wish to be treated with respect.
Gordon was ‘on loan’ to the Great Western, as they were suffering from a locomotive shortage.
–Oh, stop moaning, said his driver, –the other engines will think you’re getting too big for your wheels. And what do you mean about being treated with respect? You’ve been asked to pull the Cheltenham Spa Express, after all!
Gordon rolled his eyes, and hissed gently from his valves.
–They keep trying to make me burn their horrible coal. But I have told them, your coal may be all well and good for green engines– Gordon said the word ‘green’ with such disdain that the other locomotives in the shed narrowed their eyes and muttered under their breath –but I am a blue engine and I burn only Sodor coal.
Burton Agnes, a large Hall-class engine, shining in polished green, with gleaming brass chimney and numbers, let out a snort.
–You’re as daft as your are blue. Welsh steam coal is the best coal in the world!
Gordon shuddered
–Dreadful stuff, he said haughtily –I am a finely-tuned express locomotive. I have very sensitive firebars.
–Oh, give it a rest now, you old fusspot said his driver, cranking the wheel that released Gordon’s handbrake, then pushing his reversing lever forward and gently opening his regulator. With a rather huffy chuff, Gordon rumbled slowly from the shed
–Go on, called out Burton Agnes as he went, –treat yourself to a nice bit of Welsh! You’ll thank me for it!
–Never! Gordon retorted, and harrumphed slowly off toward the coaling-stage, where a wagon-load of his precious Sodor coal had been pushed up the ramp especially for him, and was waiting on the tippler to be tipped into his tender.
Making his way along the neighbouring siding was Thomas, who was also on loan to the Great Western.
–Peep peep, Grandad! Thomas called out cheekily –what do you think of my lovely new Attachments?
Gordon again rolled his eyes, and ignored Thomas.
Thomas was very proud of his Attachments. The Fat Controller had arranged for him to be sent to Swindon Works to get them, so that he could work with the special coaches on the Golden Valley line. Thomas missed Annie and Clarabel, but he’d already made great friends with Amy, his new ‘auto-coach’.
–Now I can PUSH as well as pull, said Thomas, as Gordon trundled slowly past –You’re a bit, er, ‘one direction’, aren’t you? Thomas giggled to himself.
–Really useful engines NEVER push, replied Gordon and came to a halt beneath the coaler.
-’Ere, you want to get some proper Welsh coal inside you, not that rubbish.
Don’t want you holding me up in the Golden Valley- I’ve got a party of historians to fetch today, don’t you know? Peep peep! And with that, Thomas scuttled off to collect Amy and head to the station.
**********************************
Gordon had to admit he felt a lot more cheerful once his headboard was on, and he’d stretched his wheels running ‘light’ to Cheltenham, where he now sat, proud and resplendent in St James station, coupled to his coaches. The Cheltenham Spa Express was a very famous train, and its record-breaking speeds meant it was known to railwaymen as the Cheltenham Flyer, or just ‘The Flyer’, for short. Gordon felt very full in the boiler, and his fire burned nicely in his firebox.
–Who needs Welsh coal? He said to himself.
But his coaches were less happy to see this strange engine coupling up to them, and they grumbled amongst themselves.
–Look at him. He’s BLUE, for goodness sake!
-He’s not from round this region, is he?
-What IS he burning? It’s got ever such an awful smell.
– Whatever will they say back at the carriage sheds?
-We shouldn’t put up with this- we’re Cheltenham coaches!
Gordon tried to ignore them, but they were spoiling his proud moment, and he could feel twinges in his safety valve.
–How DARE they? He thought to himself. –I am bigger and better than any Great Western engine!
At last the signal dropped, and- dead on time- the guard’s whistle blew.
–Right away, driver said the Station Master, who always came out to see off the Flyer.
Gordon gave a blast on his whistle, then pulled away suddenly, with a sharp tug that had the coaches squealing.
–Ow! Ow! Ow!
–He’s tugging my couplings!
-He’s bruising my buffers!
-I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them!, barked Gordon as he gathered speed, enraged at the insolence of his rolling stock, -I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them! I’ll-show-them!
The carriages rocked and swayed behind him, clattering over the points, complaining all the while:
–He’s-awfully-rude! -We’re-too-good-for-this! He’s-awfully-rude! We’re-too-good-for-this!
Gordon continued to pull roughly, and with increasing fury. The coaches were dragging their wheels, and he wasn’t going to stand for it. Not him, Gordon, a proud blue engine! He would show the Great Western a thing or two.
–God’s Wonderful Railway, my boiler-sludge! He thought to himself But the Flyer was a long and heavy train, and by the time they got to their short Gloucester stop, he was already very glad of the rest. His driver wasn’t best pleased with him.
-’Ere, will you stop playing up? You treat those coaches nicely, you hear? And don’t bust your boiler- this bit’s the easy bit; you wait til we get to the bank. You’ll need all the puff you can get.
But Gordon was in no mood to listen. Again, he pulled away with a jerk, which had the steward furiously stick his head out the restaurant car window
–You silly great engine! You’ve had me spill tea on the Bishop of Tewkesbury!
As they thundered across the Barton Street level crossing, a blast from Gordon’s ejector valve knocked a postman off his bicycle.
–You lumbering idiot! You’ve crumpled me letters!
The coaches were beside themselves with shame.
–It’s-such-a-disgrace, this-cannot-go-on! It’s-such-a-disgrace, this-cannot go- on!
Gordon thundered onwards, out of the city, and over the junction that took them onto the line for Swindon and London. Just beyond this junction, the tracks curved round to the East as they approached the town of Stonehouse, and on this curve Gordon really began to feel the full weight of his train.
Come-ON! Come-ON! Come-ON! Come-ON!
Gordon didn’t know what was wrong with him. None of the trains on Sodor was as long or as heavy as this, and there were no record-breaking times to be kept, but he was an express engine, and he had more wheels than any of the Great Western engines, so why was he finding this so hard? They rumbled through Stonehouse station at less than line speed, and Gordon was suddenly grateful there were no passengers waiting to witness him. He felt very red in the smokebox, and was starting to not enjoy himself at all. He could see the dark mass of the Cotswold scarp filling the horizon in front of him, and it filled him with unease- he’d been told that up ahead lay the job of climbing the stiff bank up to Sapperton Tunnel. Goods trains on this line had to be ‘banked’ up the steep gradient to the tunnel by a big tank engine shoving from behind, and Gordon shuddered at the thought of such engines, who had to push for a living, and as for the indignity of being shoved…
Gordon’s fireman- a Great Western man, who ‘knew the road’- piled more and more coal into his firebox, trying to give him strength for the climb.
–I can’t understand it, he shouted to the driver, I can’t get the heat! What IS this stuff?
Gordon’s driver rolled his eyes.
–Gordon doesn’t believe in anything else.
On they went, with Gordon struggling to keep up his speed as the countryside either side of the line became steadily hillier, and houses and mill-buildingsand factories crowded against the tracks. They passed through Stroud station, then rode high above a derelict canal and a river on a big viaduct. As soon as his wheels left the viaduct, Gordon felt the beginnings of the big gradient. His coaches suddenly felt very heavy indeed.
Oo-er! He gasped, trying to catch his breath, digging his wheels into the rails –It’s-starting-to-HURT! It’s-starting-to-HURT! It’s-starting-to-HURT!
The railway ran alongside the old canal at this point, and there were boys fishing amidst the reeds.
–Cor, look at that blue thing! Shouted one of them, as Gordon struggled past -’E sounds like burst balloon!
The other boys burst into laughter, and Gordon closed his eyes, feeling sick to the bottom of his drain-plugs. His coaches were no help
–We’re-oh-so-ashamed, we’re-oh-so-ashamed, we’re-oh-so-ashamed, they sang sadly as they dragged along behind him.
–Open your valves, Gordon!, shouted his driver, –or we’ll be ringing for the banker!
Gordon winced, and put all the steam he had into his pistons. On they went, but they were getting slower and slower. As they rolled through Brimscombe station, they passed the big banking engine, who was resting in his siding between assisting goods trains. The banker watched Gordon with dismay.
-’Ere!, the banker called out –you shift your side-rods! Don’t you go spoiling my lovely morning break!
But it was no use. At St Mary’s Crossing, the gate-keeper stood on the steps of his box, tapping his watch as they went past.
Gordon’s puffing became more and more weak and laboured. As they rounded the bend toward Chalford, his driver and fireman looked at each other and shook their heads. With the heavy coaches dragging hard on his tender, Gordon coughed and wheezed and spluttered into Chalford station at walking pace
-I- can’t- go- on, I- can’t- go- on, I- can’t- go- on.
And he ground to an embarrassing halt just beyond the platform, and hid himself in shame in a cloud of escaping steam. His driver quickly put on all the brakes to stop the whole train rolling backwards.
Gordon sat there with his eyes shut. He could hear station staff milling around behind him, and telephones ringing, and his passengers opening the coach doors and climbing out onto the platform to see what was going on. Thankfully, they weren’t allowed beyond the platform end, for Gordon feared they might have nasty things to say to him. And then, just when he hought things couldn’t get any worse, he suddenly heard a horribly familiar voice.
–Peep peep! Well, hello, slowcoach!
Thomas and Amy had worked the morning Chalford auto-train from Gloucester, carrying their party of local historians, as well as schoolchildren and millworkers and shoppers, and had, as was the custom, then pulled forward into a siding to await the passing of Gordon’s express, and take on water. After this, they would cross over to the ‘down’ line platform for their return journey, this time with Thomas pushing Amy from behind. Thomas’s driver would sit in a little cab at the front of Amy, and drive Thomas from there, through Thomas’s special ‘Attachments’.
But Gordon’s plight had obviously been noted by station masters and signalmen back down the line, for phone calls had occurred, and arrangements had been made, and so now when Gordon opened his eyes, he saw in horror that Thomas had been quickly uncoupled from Amy, and was now trundling towards him down a siding, pushing a grubby mineral truck loaded with what looked horribly like best Welsh steam coal.
–This’ll put steam in your pistons, old man!, whistled Thomas cheerfully as he drew to a halt with the wagon right alongside Gordon’s cab. –Don’t you go wasting it; this is meant to be my local supply!
Gordon was beyond protesting. His driver leaped up on top of the coal wagon with a shovel, where he was joined by the signalbox boy, and together they began frantically raining the big black lumps down onto Gordon’s footplate where his fireman equally frantically fed them into his firebox. Just then, the Chalford Station Master came briskly trotting up.
–Banker’s on it’s way, he shouted up to Gordon’s driver, who nodded, then pointed at the coal he was standing on.
–We’ll have steam up in no time with this, he said. Then he jerked his thumb at Gordon, still wheezing and burbling pathetically. –I’m sorry about HIM.
The Station Master leaned over the handrail at the end of the platform and called out to Gordon.
–I say! I’ve had your Fat Controller on the phone. He is very, very disappointed in you, Gordon. He says Really Useful Engines are team players.
And then he turned and strode off toward his office, to telephone an update on the situation.
Gordon said nothing. He was feeling very, very foolish. But already he could feel his strength returning, and then some. His fireman had expertly stoked the fire, which was now a fierce and roaring inferno. Water began to bubble and fizz around his fire-tubes in an unusually energetic way, which Gordon found very pleasant indeed.
–Perhaps, he grudgingly said to himself, as he felt the steam build up in his dome, –perhaps this Welsh coal isn’t too bad, after all.
Suddenly he felt a jolt in his buffers.
–Banker’s here! said his driver, throwing a last few lumps of coal across, before passing the fireman the shovel, then jumping back over himself. Gordon was about to insist that an engine like him didn’t need anything as vulgar as a banker, but then thought better of it. It was very hard for him to admit, but perhaps he didn’t quite know everything.
-Steam’s up!, called his driver, and blew a short blast on Gordon’s whistle, to remind all the passengers to jump back aboard. When the guard waved his flag to indicate they were all safely on, and the doors shut, Gordon gave a longer blast to signal to the banker. The banker gave a long blast back, and they were ready for the off.
You’ll be alright now, old man, with something decent in your belly, said Thomas rudely, as he prepared to draw back with his truck. – Ooh look, my historians are back! Get you, Gordon! They’ll be here for you, I bet- you’re making history as the engine that failed on the ‘Flyer’!
Sure enough, a large throng of people in sturdy outdoor boots were making their way along the platform, carrying rucksacks and walking-poles, led by an enthusiastic fellow in shorts and owlish glasses. The failure of the Flyer had indeed caused quite a local commotion, and the historians were obviously keen not to miss out on this small piece of local history in the making, and they had just made it in time.
Straining every valve in his frame, Gordon’s big blue driving wheels began to slowly turn. He did not want stay in this little station a moment longer; e certainly did not want to have to listen to his sorry exploits being discussed by historians. He could hardly believe it, but he found himself wobbly to the axles with gratitude at the strong, determined push he could feel from the banker engine at the back of the train.
Together, they got the heavy express moving.
WE-CAN-DO-IT! WE-WILL-DO-IT! WE-CAN-DO-IT! WE-WILL-DO-IT!
Gordon’s puffs became stronger and stronger, as he slowly gained speed, and the banker barked gruffly at the back. But even together, they were not quite loud enough to drown out the booming tones of the leader of the historians, as he turn to his party and loudly announced
–And there is our lesson, people! Never, never, NEVER trust anything not built in Swindon!
By Jon Seagrave / Jonny Fluffypunk 2025
The Fascination of Railways
The Fascination of Railways
Rodborough Church Performance
And Beyond
A friend at Stroud Walking Football lent me his boyhood collection of 17 Awdry stories, given to him at Christmas and birthdays in the early 1960s. I emailed him with a few questions and observations, seeking out his memories. I listed all the inscriptions: from an uncle and auntie; from Grandma; with love from Mummy on his 4th birthday and so on.
Here follows part of his reply:
‘So, Stuart I have to say that your email has prompted quite an emotional recall. You have highlighted some things from my early life that I had forgotten about.
I was born in September 1958 so would think that my first book was purchased by my Grandma in 1961. Sadly, she died when I was about 7 so I didn’t know her for long. She also lived in London so I didn’t see much of her.
Your reference to Uncle and Auntie Clarke is especially poignant as I had sadly forgotten the important part they played in my early childhood. I am an only child and unfortunately my mother was very poorly when I was around two years old and spent time in Mount Vernon hospital. Dad worked in London so Mr and Mrs Clarke, who lived next door, looked after me for some months as I remember. They were probably late 50s with a grown-up son and Mr Clarke worked as an Inspector on the railway, I think. They were really good to me at what must have been a difficult time and I am embarrassed to say that I had forgotten about it.
‘I think like most children my favourite was Thomas, although I did like the pomposity and arrogance of Gordon. Whilst my parents read to me in the early days, I particularly remember Uncle David visiting a couple of times a year and sitting on his knee whilst he read to me. He and my Auntie Joan were unable to have children and they were always close to me as their only nephew. David had a passion for railways and they lived in Sussex so when we went to visit a highlight was a trip to the Bluebell Railway. This was instrumental in starting my interest in preservation railways and over the years I have always enjoyed visiting them if we are on holiday and there is one in the area.
Well Stuart that concludes my memories and I am amazed at how much I have written. I hope it is useful and obviously let me know if you need anything else.
All the best with this project.’
I was so moved when I received this and it made me realise that there’s a lot more to the Thomas books than just text and pictures. I think the books are a version of the famous madeleine moments in Marcel Proust’s A la recherce du temps perdu (Remembrance of things past). Here’s the famous biscuit passage: ‘… as soon as I had recognised the taste of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me … immediately the old grey house upon the street where her room was, rose up like a stage set … and with the house, the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.’
And a jump in logic here, perhaps, but please allow me – I think the madeleine moments trope applies not only to the Thomas books but, for many people of a certain age, to railways in general. So let us test this proposition with extracts from
Roger Lloyd’s 1951 book, The Fascination of Railways
‘The curious but intense pleasure that is given to many people by the watching and the study of railway trains, their engines, and the detail of their organisation is both an art and a mystery. It is an art because the pleasure to be had is exactly proportionate to the informed enthusiasm one puts into it. It is a mystery because, try as one will, it is impossible to explain to others exactly in what the pleasure consists. The connection between the sight of a railway engine and the quite deep feeling of satisfaction is very real for multitudes of people but it eludes rational analysis.’
Mr Lloyd then transports is to a favourite bridge: ‘Once on top of that bridge a rather murky but for me a most real heaven lay all about. If no trains were coming through there was shunting in the Yard to watch. But trains were very frequent and they generally came very fast indeed, rushing at the bridge with a great roar, and crashing under it with a roll of thunder. I would stick my head as far through the iron lattice work as it would go and try to look right down the chimney. I never could, of course, but for long after there was a highly satisfactory smell of sulphur, and flying smuts which descended on one’s clothes, and the tail lamp vanishing into the distance. To that bridge also I owe the fact that I discovered the right way to view a freight train. It must be viewed from above the track, for then you can see what all the open waggons contain, and lose yourself in a maze of pleasant speculation about the extraordinary variety of goods which one freight train takes and make guesses about where a particular wagon has come from and where it is bound.’
‘But I have written so far only of boys and men. There are certainly more of them than of girls and women. But I once made the mistake of saying publicly that this railway interest “seems to be exclusively male.” At once I was rebuked, and by many people. There was the schoolboy whose mother found watching trains “such an amiable thing to do.” She liked their speed and colour, but her real satisfaction was in the ambling freight train with a small tank engine in front, because then she could think of it as a “dear little train.”
Then there was the vivid scene described to me by a man who had made a special pilgrimage to New Southgate in order to see a special excursion …’ [run by an engine brought out of retirement, Stirling’s 4-2-2 No. 1] ‘…and there he found ‘four alert girls, who were obviously watching the rail traffic. This was something new to me, and on some pretext or another I introduced myself to a very animated conversation … As soon as the girls discovered that I too was a locomotive enthusiast, they seemed anxious to impart the news of the day and in less time it takes to tell I was examining a beautifully written set of quart-sized note-books in which were recorded the number, name, type, classification, shed, and date when seen of every engine on the line. Besides all this these girls had other notebooks, which they kept in the form of journals, showing the engines at work on particular duties, the formation of the trains involved, and the passing time at their observation place on the lineside.
“Of course, you’ve come to see No. 1,” said one of them … Apparently they spent most of their holidays at this spot, and when I came to ask them how they came to be so interested as to keep such careful records, they seemed almost at a loss for a reply, as if they were doing the most natural thing in the world. In due course, No. 1 came along on her way back to London; wrist watches were consulted, and entries were made in the journals. “He was making about 70, I should think,” said one of the girls.’
‘There would be no difficulty whatever in demonstrating that the number of people who are fascinated by railways is very large and surprisingly various, and it therefore follows that there is something about railways which has the power to fascinate. The basic element of it is no doubt an affection for the steam engine, for I never met a railway enthusiast yet who could take the slightest interest in an electric train, or who does not in his heart regret that the diesel engine was ever invented.’
But, like all of us, Lloyd’s writing is conditioned by the time in which he wrote. His observations about electric trains were probably correct in 1951. But speaking as one who was born in that year and who lived through the demise of steam as a boy, I find that I can stare at an electric train and bingo! Marcel Proust works his madeleine magic and I am transported to a platform with semaphore signals with all the sights and sounds and smells associated with steam.
Zen and the Art of Railway Carriage Travel
‘To the lover of railways, travelling is an art. Like other men he uses trains as a convenient means of shifting his body from one place to another, but he makes this process serve other ends as well. He uses it to get the ‘feel’ of the line, to see new engines and recognise old ones, to learn more and yet more about railway working; and he hopes to get from all this a real and, deep pleasure. If his journey takes him by a route over which he has not travelled before, then his pleasure is intensified until it almost becomes excitement, and he knows that he will not read very much of the book in his bag. But all this is given to him in more generous measure by the norm or average of trains than by the exceptional or spectacular.’
Which is how it is for me on the Stroud to Swindon branch line.
THE SLEEPER
10.30 P.M. GLASGOW-EUSTON
‘… the most thrilling incongruity of all is undoubtedly the act of undressing and getting into a bed not in one’s own bedroom but in a train while being hurtled through the countryside at a mile a minute.
I feel sure that if they would openly confess what is in their minds, practically every sleeping car passenger approaches the train and clutches his special tickets with a real thrill …
But having parted with considerable sums of money … on the non-stop 1030 p.m. Glasgow to Euston, it would be just as well actually to sleep in it …
I actually got quite quickly to a light sleep too, which was marvellous for someone interested in railways. For the trouble is of course that people who have this infirmity are much too interested in what is going on to let themselves fall properly asleep. My own Waterloo is the battle for the sort of steady slumber which thank God, always blesses me at home, is to start wondering where we are. It is hopeless to let yourself do this on a line you know really well, for you start testing yourself to see if you can discover your whereabouts by the clues of sound alone. My light sleep is instantly dissipated by a slowing of the train and the changed rhythm of the wheels …
Why are we slowing? Is it a signal? No, for we aren’t stopping dead. Well, then perhaps we’re climbing Beattock. Now I come to think of it there was a lighted station a few miles back, and I suppose it must have been Carstairs. Yes, I think that must be right because I can now hear the engine laboriously and steadily puffing, and obviously we are climbing a long incline. It must be Beattock Bank. Or no! It might be Shap Fell. I might have slept longer than I supposed. If it is, then that lighted station must have been Carlisle. But then if it was we should have stopped for a minute at Upperby shed to change the engine crew, and I’m pretty sure we didn’t. By this time, there is nothing for it but to switch on the light and look at my watch. That settles it. It’s only just midnight, so we couldn’t possibly have passed Carlisle. This must be Beattock after all.
Well, now that I know that, perhaps I can go to sleep again; and in fact I do so at once, and, as the event showed I stayed asleep for quite a long time. What next wakes me is a sudden pressure at my feet as the train swings round a curve … Then where are we? … Once more I am comfortably dozing, when we swing round another curve, over many points, and pass a busy engine shed … I get up, slide the louvre from the window and look out … Preston … I must have steadily slept the whole way from Beattock and missed Carlisle altogether.
Having thoroughly yielded to this nosey inquisitiveness I really go to sleep this time, but even in sleep I am vaguely conscious of the geographical messages of noise. We rattle over a bridge. Obviously the Sutton Weaver Viaduct, so we are near Warrington. A little later comes the characteristically cavernous sound of Crewe … Then comes a station where a train thunders over our heads as we pass beneath it – probably Lichfield, or it might be Tamworth. Either way it is nowhere near time for that cup of tea which the attendant is going to bring as we run through Bletchley, so go to sleep again … And oddly enough I do so, for I hear nothing whatever of Rigby or Crick Tunnel, or the noisy cutting where the line from Northampton joins us.
The next thing I know is the attendant’s knock, and a cup of tea … The night is far spent and the day is at hand: the full light has already come. But the mist is not yet lifted from the fields, and, sitting on the bed and then slowly shaving while watching the countryside slip past, one can see the sun gently dissolving the low cloud of vapour … Not until Willesden does that magic fade, but then before there is time to regret its passing we are running by Camden engine sheds … It is the journey’s end, for in a moment we are running into platform 3 at Euston at 7.30 …’
Finally, in passing I note that the conclusion to his book appears almost to negate the earlier Madeleine-ism of steam and contempt for modernity:
‘Anyone who loves railways must admit to much nostalgia over the past. But in this, as in every other thing which has life in it, the dead must be left to bury their dead; and the living must pay a seemly reverence to the dead, but look to the future.’
A People’s History Chapter Nine
A MISCELLANY OF HISTORY
A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
A TEXTUAL SAMPLER
Chapter Nine
A few parish register entries:
Nympsfield 1719 Daniel ‘a black stranger’ buried.
Nympsfield 1773 Francis London ‘a servant to the Rt. Hon. Lord Ducie – supposed to be 17 years of age, ‘a native of Africa’ was baptised.
Rodborough 1778 William Jubiter – ‘black’ was buried.
Stroud 1786 Adam John Parker, ‘Negro, 32, was buried. Parish funeral’.
Frocester 1790 ‘William Frocester, supposed to be 11 or 12 years old, born on the island of Barbados, now a servant of Edward Bigland Esq. residing in Jamaica, was baptised.’
Stroud 1801 William Eliis, ‘son of Qualquay Assedew, a Negro of Guinea, aged 12 years, was baptised.’
Bisley 1815 Testimonial from Richard Raikes, supporting the application of John Hart, Writing Master, to the post of master at Bisley Blue Coat School, ‘Unfortunately he is a Mulatto, a native of the West Indies.’
Minchinhampton 1826 Thomas Davies, ‘an infirm travelling Black’, was buried, 67 years old.
Walks from Stroud Railway Station from the Black Ark Media Group from the Gloucestershire Black History Map: The Abolition Arch
‘This Grade 2 Arch is Britain’s oldest antislavery memorial. Originally built as the entrance to Farmhill Park for Henry Wyatt, a clothier who bought the Stroud property the same year as the Abolition Act (having been a tenant since 1817). A supporter of the Stroud Anti-Slavery Society he pressurised MP, W.H. Hyett, to vote for abolition in Parliament. The Arch is a source of pride and for some a reminder of the £20m (equivalent) injection into the Stroud District economy from seven local ‘compensated’ slave owners.’
Walks from Stroud Railway Station from the Black Ark Media Group from the Gloucestershire Black History Map: Black Boy Clock
‘At the junction of Castle, Nelson and Middle Streets a 1774 “Jack Clock” sits within a specially designed niche on an old Girls School Building. This depiction of a small Black boy with a club may have been inspired by tobacco advertisements of the time. It was made by Stroud watchmaker John Miles 270+ years into the transatlantic slave trade. Some of the Stroud elite were connected to and profited from this trade. In April 2022 the Council recommended that the clock be removed.’
The Old Curiosity Railway Shop
The Railway Curiosity Shop of Wonder in John Street, Stroud
Alec is always busy in his shop,
Mending clocks and repairing engines,
Walking past trucks and carriages and bottles and level crossings –
But when sunlight flashed through the rainswept window,
Alec, like Dickens, performing his characters,
Stopped to entertain me with his memories:
‘I started work in the hot summer of ’76. My mum, who worked in the canteen in Swindon Works, making cakes for the drivers, wanted me to get a job. Mum was forever dashing out to take in the washing in the old days of steam as our house in Brimscombe backed down to the line. Anyway, the foreman at the NCB at Stonehouse knew my brother, and he asked: “Can you start tomorrow?”
I clocked on at 7 for a 40 hour-week; 7-4.30 with an hour for dinner and a 15-minute break in the morning and in the afternoon. A good wage of £54 a week. I loved driving that 0-4-0 diesel shunter, “Dougal” (formerly, “Mr Useful”), built in 1945. Up and down the line used by the Dudbridge Donkey, up there near Oldends Lane, and the two sidings at the top where I dropped the coal. 12 hoppers, 12 different types of fuel, the dirty old conveyor belt, the diesel fuel tank.
I loved driving that train: 3 gears on the diesel, with dual controls so you could drive on either side. Kids used to gather on Silver Bridge and shout, “Hello Mr Dougal” and I used to give them a blast of steam back. They loved that.
I even had a visit from a Vintage Preservation Society. I think we must have had 10 in the cab and 4 hanging on the sides. They wouldn’t allow it now but there wasn’t the Health and Safety back then.
When they knocked down Stonehouse Station, they took the remains down to the Ocean and buried down below the waters. All those signs like ‘Ticket Office, ‘Waiting Room’, ‘Ladies’, ‘Gents’, down there in the Ocean by St Cyr’s on the canal. If only I knew then what I know now …
I was made redundant in 1986 when Mrs Thatcher closed down the mines. I was offered a job on B.R. to train as a driver but fancied a change. It wasn’t until 2002 that I took over this shop. But I remembered the money there was in coal and the money I made as a kid digging for bottles with marbles. ‘Where there was dirt, there was money.’ I used to dig at Stroud Tip. It’s quite spooky when you unearth a severed Victorian porcelain doll’s head, I can tell you, when you’re looking for bottles.’
The publican from the Ale House came in,
With some finds and discoveries for Alec,
A number of clocks collectively chimed the hour,
A customer entered so I gazed around from my chair:
At lengths of railway track and signal boxes and points and levers,
And locomotives and carriages and trucks,
So much of which had been painstakingly repaired
By Alec behind the counter with file
And blow lamp and new springs and ingenuity.
He creates life and vitality from old clockwork,
And life and vitality from his memory too:
‘Down in John Street, early in the morning,
See the little engines all in a row,
Alec with his green flag, Blows upon his whistle,
Peep, peep, peep And away they go.’
‘
Between the Lines
BETWEEN THE LINES
BY RICHARD DRY
I grew up in the 1970s in Stonehouse, just off Oldends Lane on the edge of the Park Estate, smack-bang in the middle between two main railway lines. Looking north from my bedroom window, the Stroud to Gloucester line sat raised up on an embankment to the right, while on the left the Bristol to Gloucester line ran at ground level. Behind our house between the lines was the recreation ground – the Rec – complete with Stonehouse Magpies football ground. Beyond that was a small farm, and beyond that, a mile or so away, a scrubby no-man’s land that us kids called Ants Bank. Peppered with ant hills (hence the name), stunted hawthorn bushes and animal bones, Ants Bank tapered to a point where the two lines met; the Stroud line gradually descending to meet the Bristol. For a 10-year-old kid it was a thrilling place to be. The closer to the convergence, the more exposed we were. When pinging sounds from the tracks alerted us to approaching trains, we dived for cover behind the nearest bush. To stand between the lines where they joined was almost a rite of passage.
As I recall, traffic on the Stroud line consisted predominantly of passenger trains: a mixture of intercity Class 47s and local 3-carriage diesel multiple units, or ‘Bug Sets’ as we disparagingly called them. The Bristol line was busier, and carried more freight. I remember purposeful-looking Class 45 Peaks hauling long double-deck wagons loaded with new cars and vans from factories in the Black Country. And occasionally there was a coal train, which slowed as it approached, ready to pull into sidings behind our estate. Because here was the coal yard, and spanning it all the steel-and-timber Silver Bridge. We spent hours on and around that footbridge, watching in fascination as a little black shunter marshalled the wagons, or, when there was no-one around, scaling the fence and clambering over the filthy wagons or looking for slow-worms under the lumps of concrete that lay strewn about beside the tracks. Most exciting of all was to lie flat on our bellies, heads poking out of the bridge latticework as a train thundered beneath, its roof almost close enough to touch. The bridge rattled and shook, and we were slapped in the face with hot, cloying diesel fumes. And we loved it!
Clearly visible from the Silver Bridge was the Oldends Lane crossing, which was originally manned by a surly bloke whose miserable lot it was to physically close and open four large hinged gates day-in, day-out to the relentless demands of the timetable. In the later 1970s, both the man and his little hut disappeared, to be replaced by automated barriers and a raucous jangling bell. I dread to think what it was like for people living nearer the crossing, because that bell kept us awake at night for weeks before we got used to it, and even then it remained a peripheral irritation. But the sound of a passing train was never that. Far from it. In fact, to this day I find it somehow comforting; a subliminal reassurance that in spite of everything the world is still turning, still going about its business.
Pride comes before a Fall
Pride comes before a Fall
You know the shop in John Street with all the bottles and jars and bikes and signs outside, and all the vintage toy railway engines inside: all those toy trucks and carriages and level crossings and signals and oh so much more. The one by Duffel and opposite the falafel takeaway.
Well, a very interesting man called Alec owns that shop and he is very good at repairing old train sets. He also has some very interesting railway stories.
Here is one of them. I hope you enjoy reading it or listening to it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s a true story
Alec used to be a train driver in the days when coal was a very important fuel for people to keep warm in their homes and as a source of power to keep the wheels of industry turning. Alec worked for the National Coal Board at Stonehouse, going up and down the line used by the old Dudbridge Donkey. His train comprised trucks with twelve different types of coal and Alec would deposit the coal into twelve different hoppers at a siding with a long coal dust blackened conveyor belt. He would also stop at the diesel fuel tank to fill up his thirsty locomotive. It was hard work for that 0-4-0 diesel shunter!
Alec’s locomotive was built in 1945 when this country was still at war, until the spring and summer at last brought peace. It was a sturdy locomotive, built to last, and when Alec first took control in the hot summer of 1976, he felt as happy as Larry. The diesel then was painted jet black and its name was ‘Mr. Useful’. Alec loved that locomotive so much that one day in another hot summer, when there wasn’t so much demand for coal, Alec bought some paint after finishing his shift.
The next day he set to work, carefully painting ‘Mr. Useful’ in a splendid green and yellow livery. It was also decided to rename the engine and so he was re-christened ‘Dougal’. Dougal was very pleased with his new name and very pleased with his new coat of paint. “Now I am not just useful but also very handsome,” he said to himself as he set out from the siding next day.
The boys and girls who gathered on the bridge to watch Mr Useful pass beneath were astonished and delighted to see this new, gleaming locomotive. Richard Dry, the Stonehouse boy, had been up betimes at the siding and had spotted that sombre Mr Useful was now a gleaming green and yellow Dougal. He told all his friends on the bridge all about it and they all shouted together, “Good morning, Mr Dougal!” Dougal gave them a toot on the horn and a puff of smoke to greet them back.
Everybody loved the sight of Mr Dougal – but, unfortunately, so did Dougal. He began to admire himself when he caught a flash of his reflection in a window pane or shining steel. He began to get ideas above his station. “What am I doing here, shunting dirty trucks of coal?”, he would mutter to himself as he trundled up and down the line. “Dudbridge Donkey line, indeed! Me?”
Ah! The deadly sin of Pride! Dougal began to lord it over the trucks: “I should be on the main line, don’t you know? Pulling the Cheltenham Flyer from Paddington should be my station in life. I don’t know what I’m doing here with you dirty urchin trucks. Do you remember that winter’s day when Alec left you and me in the siding with your trucks full of coal? And the next day when Alec came to my cab, there were footprints in the snow where miscreant ne’er do wells had clambered all over you and pilfered the coal. And you didn’t say a word against them. I bet it was that Richard Dry and his chums. But I shan’t put up with that any more. Oh no. It’s Paddington and the main line for me while you gather grime in the siding.”
The trucks sniggered and mocked Dougal’s swollen head and whispered amongst themselves conspiratorially. They all smiled with satisfaction: they were sure they had a fool-proof plan.
Alec, of course, was blissfully unaware of all of this. He continued to smile his contented smile as he went through Dougal’s gears, taking Dougal through his paces, beaming at the children on the bridge with a cheerful wave of the hand … until that fateful day …
Now it so happened that Richard Dry was sitting on the fence by the siding just as the trucks were hatching their plan. Richard had heard every word of their whispered plotting! He knew he couldn’t rush down the line to tell the foreman as that would be trespassing. He made his way to the foreman’s hut legally, but circuitously and laboriously. And alas! When he got there, the foreman’s hut was bare! He was too late: the foreman had left and Alec had already clocked on for his shift.
You might remember that Dougal was a National Coal Board locomotive but operated on a line owned and maintained by British Railways. The man from B.R. had just come out the day before to check the points and oil the levers for the points. The trouble was that the man had a bad cold that day and couldn’t think straight. He greased all the points levers on the main line but forgot to oil the points lever for the trucks and Dougal’s siding.
But back to Alec after clocking on. He wandered down the line to Dougal and as he had to change the points, he pulled the lever. But he was in a hurry as he was a bit late and it was dark and gloomy and Alec needed to get Dougal ready for his chores. Alec pulled the lever but as it hadn’t been oiled, it was a bit stiff, and it stuck, unbeknown to Alec, half-way. In consequence, the railway lines were not fully aligned from siding to main line.
This was also unbeknown to Dougal and unbeknown to the trucks. The trucks decided to hatch their plan and started to push and shove and clatter, laughing to themselves, when to their surprise, and Alec’s amazement when he peered from his cab, the trucks went high up into the air and then clattered down with a terrible din upon sleepers and railway line and ballast and embankment. Bedlam! Chaos! A derailment!
The trucks groaned and felt guilty, for, of course, they thought they had caused the awful mishap with a mischievous prank. Alec had no time for remorse. He walked briskly down the line to tell the foreman about the disaster. The foreman wasted no time in telephoning British Railways who wasted no time in sending down a crane to put matters right: railway sleepers and lines and trucks and Dougal all put in their right place and the right way up – all ship-shape and Stonehouse fashion.
Dougal didn’t sleep a wink that night for if such a mishap could occur when moving at such a slow gait, what might happen if he were to pull the Cheltenham Flyer from Paddington at express speed? Traumatising nightmares followed. There was only one thing to do.
He decided to apologise to the trucks for his vanity and would they have him back as their friend again? The trucks, under the illusion that they had caused the derailment, delightedly shouted, “Yes,” in unison.
And so, in short, they might have all lived happily ever after – if only the mines hadn’t been closed. But that, my friends, is another story for another time. And so, we say, “Good night. Sleep tight. God bless Alec, and Richard, and Dougal, and the trucks.” And I think we know the moral of the story, don’t we children?
Stroudwater 1825 and Gloucester 2025
Stroudwater 1825 and Gloucester 2025
The spring and summer two hundred years ago
Saw a sustained strike by the Stroudwater weavers
To protect their standard of living
In the face of wage cuts and price rises.
Two hundred years later, in Gloucester,
Phlebotomists have been on strike
For over two hundred days:
The longest strike in the history of the NHS.
Skilled workers but the lowest-paid in the NHS,
Women asking for fair pay for their care and service,
And with every day that passes in this campaign,
Prices in the shops keep on rising.
You can show your support for them today
By emailing or writing to your MP;
Making space and time to visit the picket line
Up the road and railway line at Gloucester Hospital,
Or digging deep in your pocket if you can
To contribute to their strike fund.
So let us remember the Stroudwater weavers
With a show of solidarity with the Gloucester phlebotomists:
This is an act of appropriate commemoration
That will stir the waters of the mill ponds,
And send a message of unity through space and time:
Stroudwater and Gloucester conjoined:
Victory to the Phlebotomists of Gloucester!
Dirty Old Stroud by Richard Dry
DIRTY OLD STROUD
Before Stroud had a by-pass – or a Waitrose – it had a scrapyard. The Salvage and Recovery yard stretched all the way from what is now Travis Perkins to the railway viaduct, filling the space between the Stroudwater Canal and the River Frome. The official entrance was just over the canal bridge past the Bell Inn, where a rough road led off behind what was then Stroud Builders’ Merchants. A little way in, and a group of large, rusting steel sheds became visible behind a group of trees. It was about here that you began to notice the smell: a heady mix of stale oil, old grease, acid from the piles of car batteries and the dank scent of oxidising metal.
That was the official entrance, anyway. Aged 13 or 14, after school or on weekends, my friend and I were regular visitors, and we always went in through the back door. Paul lived on Horns Road, so we would wander down Field Road, cross London Road and access it that way. The view from the bottom of Field Road could not be more different from that which meets the eye today. Where now stands a Waitrose and, to the left the roundabout at the eastern end of Dr Newton’s Way, a dense thicket of ivy-covered trees emerged from a steep bank, at the bottom of which was the choked-up remnants of the old canal. Roughly where steps now lead shoppers down to the store, a tarmac track cut down to the towpath, crossing the canal on a lofty old steel bridge green with algae. At the bottom, numerous other paths meandered through the habitat-rich tangle of ash, elder, hawthorn and sycamore. One to the right headed beneath the central arch of the viaduct, then veered left down to the little footbridge over the river. Straight ahead at this point, however, was the unfenced back of the scrapyard.
The space beneath the viaduct seemed much bigger then, and not just because we were younger. There was of course no road; in fact, the canal passed beneath the arch where the by-pass now sits. Back then, scrubby bushes gradually petered out to reveal a winding hardcore track. To the right of this, on the canal side, were piles of cars awaiting the attentions of the crusher, and to the left a sea of industrial machinery. Star of the show for us was an intact mobile crane left over from the Second World War, which had become so hemmed-in by dead factory equipment and other unidentifiable metal corpses that it had so far escaped its inevitable fate. Past all this was a wide, open area in front of the steel sheds where huge hydraulic shears sat bolted down on concrete plinths, surrounded by hungry skips, and the ground was sticky with oil.
Entering the scrapyard for the first time, I’d been on edge, ready to scarper at the sound of an angry shout. But none ever came. It wasn’t at all like the scrapyard in the old Stonehouse Brickworks at Ryeford, which had padlocked steel gates covered in barbed wire and a pair of half-wild alsatians to keep people out. In Stroud, once the workers had gone home (via the Bell, no doubt), the place was a free-for-all.
Twice we found old cars parked up near the sheds – recent arrivals with the keys still in the ignition. The first one was a quaint little Austin A40. Out of curiosity I turned the key and it started, and without a word we both jumped in. I had a rough idea of how to drive a car, but I’d never actually done it. After a few stalls we finally got going, and went veering off down the bumpy track in first gear all the way to the viaduct. Here, attempting a 3-point turn, I reversed off the raised track and ended up bellying the car, which we abandoned. The second attempt was more successful. We were excited to find a 2-litre Ford Cortina estate, which after the Austin felt like a bus. I was starting to get the hang of the driving lark, and we went careening up and down, laughing like lunatics, until it ran out of petrol. My reversing skills had a long way to go, though, as I’d crunched every corner of it turning round amongst the scrap.
In the early 1980s I returned to the scrapyard armed with a camera, and was dismayed to find the place virtually cleared. The old wartime crane had finally succumbed to the cutting torch along with everything else. The processing sheds, the skips and even the massive, scary hydraulic shears had all themselves been cut up for scrap. Before long, the land had been bulldozed to make way for the desperately needed by-pass, the dreary business park and, beyond the viaduct, Stroud’s very own Waitrose. Maybe I’m looking back through rose-tinted glasses, but I preferred dirty old Stroud as it was.
1825 STROUDWATER WEAVERS’ RIOTS BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION WALK
1825 STROUDWATER WEAVERS’ RIOTS BICENTENARY COMMEMORATION
Saturday November 15th. Meet outside The Prince Albert at noon for a commemorative walk of some five or six miles maximum along the River Frome and the canal before climbing up towards Amberley and thence back to The Prince Albert. Readings along the way. A free explanatory leaflet so that walkers can follow the history of 1825 themselves in the future. After the walk, an informal ‘seminar’ in The Prince Albert: a pubinar?
The Stroudwater Weavers’ Riots of 1825 were an important moment in trade union history – and not just locally but nationally too. The strikes were against a lowering of rates for weavers from employers with community punishments for those who broke the strike. The action and history deserve to be remembered and commemorated this year: the bicentenary. Thousands were involved in the action of the summer of 1825 and, in consequence, many were sent to prison.
But there is also evidence of trade union unity in that summer of 1825 that went beyond weavers to other occupational groups. Indeed, four years later in 1829, the government sent a spy down to Stroud to infiltrate a trade union ceremony involving a secret oath … if this event had happened just another few years later then Stroud might well be remembered and conjoined with Tolpuddle in trade union history …
Radical Stroud is grateful for the support of UNITE 007 Gloucester Branch in putting on this and associated events, exhibitions, research, leaflets and more discursive or creative writing. So grateful. Past and Present conjoined.