The Voice of C.R. Clinker (clerk at Bristol)
It would be wrong to give the impression that the General Strike was anything but a very serious calamity. Yet to a young man in his twenties, with only three years’ service, it provided an interlude in daily routine and a sense of excitement.
Monday morning’s work in the office was much as usual. But after lunch all suddenly became tense. The staff was handed a telegram from the General Manager urging each ‘Great Western man’ to hesitate before breaking his contract of service with ‘the old company’. At four we were summoned to the Board Room – the only occasion I remember seeing all the staff assembled together. We were asked to indicate on a list whether we intended to remain at work, and, if we did so, what we would undertake. It was an awesome decision. Having recently passed my Signalling exam. with 85% marks I signed up for ‘any work’ with no clear idea of what it might involve. We were told to go home and report for duty at 6a.m.
Being unable to sleep, I got up early, put a few necessaries in a small bag and walked the two and a half miles to the station, arriving there about 4.30 a.m. The scene at Temple Meads was quite extraordinary. Every platform was blocked by trains without engines. The enginemen had just detached their engines on arrival and gone to shed. In No.4 (the up main platform) stood the Penzance-Paddington Postal from which the Post Office had removed their bags. Several of the station inspectors were about, few of the Supervisory staff having joined the Strike. The refreshment rooms opened at 6a.m. as usual and promised a welcome meeting place.
At the office, it appeared that only four of the men had elected to strike, but only three of the loyal men were prepared to take on anything.
News came in that two of the station masters had struck. One, on the main line had foolishly instructed his signalman to leave the level crossing gates across the line, contrary to standing instructions. The other, on a very rural double line branch in Wiltshire, had done the same at two crossings under his supervision. I was sent to the latter [Codford] in the office car and dumped seemingly in the middle of nowhere.
Having obtained the keys of the station from the station master and locked up, I walked up the road to the village to find some lodgings for a night or two. I was kindly received at the little hotel, to whom I explained that my meal times might be irregular, and so on.
Back at the station I telephoned up and down the line to see if any train was about, but there was no news. A farmer arrived with a dozen milk churns. I had no idea of how to charge or invoice milk. We did not deal with such traffic at the station where I had trained. I accepted it, wrote out a waybill marked ‘charges to follow’ and left the load for the first train that might appear.
Towards midday the station master’s wife spoke to me over the hedge separating the garden from the platform. She said her husband had gone out and would I like some lunch on a tray? I accepted and this surreptitious arrangement was continued several times a day while I remained there. An odd arrangement to be fed by a station master’s wife!
Just as I was sitting down to my first lunch, a train arrived unheralded. Block working was suspended and it had come up the line ignoring signals. It was manned by a retired driver and his very juvenile son as fireman; the guard was a regular man. I unlocked the gates, passed the train through and rode with it for about half a mile to the second crossing. Here I encountered the crossing keeper’s wife, a foul-mouthed unpleasant woman, who shouted abuse at me whilst I handled the gates. The train went on its way and I returned on foot to my lunch.
After four days in this delightfully rural spot, a telephone message told me that one of our relief station masters was on the way to take over, and that I was to go to a small junction signal box on the main line.
This promised to be more interesting and would not have been over arduous had not the station master been thoroughly objectionable and unhelpful. To be pitched into a strange signal box, albeit of only eighteen levers, and expected to commence work at once without time to examine the diagram or grasp the locking, was difficult enough. It was much more difficult trying to get my bearings amid an almost ceaseless string of invective. I devoutly wished the station master had gone on strike.
Fortunately after two days and a night in which time I passed some 40 trains, I was able to move on, this time to a large junction box in Bristol where I joined an office colleague older than myself. The disadvantage of its position was proximity to a public road overbridge from which vantage point men, and some women, had been throwing stones and other missiles on to the lines and at the box windows. Half the glass had gone when I arrived and nearly all was shattered before we were withdrawn on termination of the strike three days later. The electric batteries were exhausted and we were without block instruments or telephones. All we could do was to work such mechanical levers as were not electrically locked.
After six days and nights without sleep I was in a daze without any sort of feeling left in me except an overwhelming desire to go to bed. I took a taxi to my lodging, refused any food and could hardly keep awake whilst I undressed and flopped into bed. But I was too tired for immediate sleep and it was several hours before I got off. I awoke two days later.
It was a great relief to be told that I might take two weeks special leave. This I spent at home in the Midlands and returned to normal life at the office fully refreshed.
Restoration of the havoc caused by the Strike was a protracted business. On the goods side movement had been virtually suspended except for foodstuffs, petrol and other necessaries. Traders had used road transport and continued to do so in some cases. Much valuable traffic was permanently lost to the railways and a good deal that resumed did so only slowly.
In the traffic department, passenger trains were very gradually restored, coach and engine workings were extracted from the muddle which hand-to-mouth working had driven them. Signalling equipment was overhauled and set to rights. It was officially stated that full normal working was not restored until the summer of 1927.
I do not know how the membership of trade unions among GW staff compared with those of other companies at this time. At a number of places in the Division there were certainly strong trade union branches, notably at Swindon, Trowbridge, Westbury and Bristol. At smaller places the interest seemed lukewarm.
The Railway Clerks’ Association did not appear to attract many members of the divisional office staff. I doubt if more than 15 per cent belonged to it. So far as I could see, the interest in union activities was negligible – virtually non-existent. My membership was never canvassed during the whole of my service with the Company.
‘Mr. T.J. Morris writes of his father’s experience:
In October 1925 my father was promoted from station master, Cirencester, to a similar position at Bilson Jn. At Cirencester, the revenues were derived chiefly from passenger traffic, but Bilson was in the heart of the Forest of Dean and the main income came from the conveyance of coal. Indeed, at Bilson, little, if any, provision was made for passengers. Those such as there were used the nearby terminal station of Cinderford.
Bilson Jn virtually consisted of a huge marshalling yard into which flowed the output of the coal mines at the nearby collieries of Foxes Bridge, Crump Meadow and Lightmoor. In earlier days other collieries has existed along the adjacent Churchway branch which also used Bilson Jn as the outlet to the main line. My father had only just about settled down to his new duties when all railway movement was disrupted by the General Strike.
At Bilson there was little, if any, movement as the great collieries were also shut down. These were very dark and hungry days for the whole community. The schools in the area became veritable soup kitchens, and for a few weeks the situation remained very grave.
During the school holidays I saw a group of men approaching the railway bridge at Bilson. I quickly recognised that they were all colliers from the strike-ridden pits and I immediately became aware that they were very cross about something. Here I should explain that whilst many railwaymen, especially those in the operating grades were on strike, my father carried on working. His office was in the middle of the marshalling yard close to the bridge on which I was sitting. He was not unsympathetic to the cause of the miners, but I was one of ten children and it never occurred to him but that he must continue working to sustain his very large family.
I watched anxiously as the picket strode down the railway lines and approached my father’s office. On arrival they were met by my father’s clerk – a Mr Stan Freeman – and although I could not hear what was being said it soon became apparent that a fierce argument was in progress. It was at this point that the office door opened and out came my father who, for reasons of his own, had decided to don his station master’s hat. He then advanced towards the group and, in what seemed no time at all, they all began to disperse. Thus an ugly situation was averted and for the first and only time at Bilson Jn I saw my father wearing his official uniform hat.
He himself told me very little about what had transpired, but the miners had clearly demanded that both my father and his clerk should cease working and this they had declined to do.
Mr Morris’s wife, Mrs K.G. Morris, also has her own strike memories:
My memories of the General Strike are extremely vivid. My father was a ticket collector on the GWR at St James station, Cheltenham. My mother had just been told she had a heart condition caused by rheumatism and it would last ten years, when she would recover. My sister was just three years old and I was seven.
I knew something was worrying my parents in addition to my mother’s illness, but knew not what.
I so well remember my father coming home from work one day. He came up to the bedroom where we were sitting with my mother; he was very upset and said to my mother, ‘They called me “scum” when I went into work today and my cousin was in the picket line trying to stop me going in. I cannot possibly strike with you so ill, we need the money. But it really is an awful business!’ It was the first time I saw my father cry!
I really did not understand the Strike. I could not understand how people could be so unkind to my father when I knew how worried he was about my mother’s health. However, they did not change him. The text at his funeral service was, “He went about doing good.” Would that there were more like him.
Mr J. Harber of Swindon recalls:
My father was a fitter in the Loco Works and also a part time fireman of the Works Brigade. The AEU allowed him to attend fires and emergencies.
I was ten years old in 1926 and lived in the railway estate. Most of the Strike activities took place around the estate. The Strike meetings were held in the park and the picketing took place in the main entrance.
As the estate and park were private property, any strike activity was trespassing. W. Robins and W. Noble who were Secretary RCA and District Secretary AEU, were arrested for trespassing during a picket.
The Revd K. Crisford, who was a curate at St Mark’s, preached a sermon against the railway companies and the Government and supported the strikers. After the service he walked to the park in his cassock and surplice with supporting parishioners to address a Strike meeting.
This was not supported by all the church members, some who were managers, foremen and ‘hopefuls’ shifted their allegiance to Christ Church. [After the Strike the Revd Mr Crisford was forced to leave Swindon.]
On a more personal note our school swimming lessons were stopped due to the water being supplied from the Loco Works, and the boilermen being on strike.’
UCL TYPE VOICE
‘Well, when UCL said to us that our final papers would be regarded benignly if we volunteered during the Strike, honestly, what could one do? Duty and self-interest married nicely together and so needless to say, one had to heed the call. And the call of a signal box on the Great Western Railway was irresistible: a nice stove if needed, occasional auroral benisons; bells and levers, and tea by the gallon; flaming sunsets and the romance of steam; in short: “What larks, Pip!”
I thought it would all be tally ho and tickety boo and straightforward but goodness me, no. I had to follow instructions and study a manual. So that we would quickly get to know the ropes, as it were. They said it was a simplified manual but Crikey I hope my finals won’t be as diffy. Here’s a taste of it and I can honestly say, it put me right off. Too much responsibility, I thought. Listen, and you’ll see what I mean. Here’s CHAPTER TWO: SIGNALS AND THEIR USES.
Imagine yourself the engine-driver of a non-stop train travelling at a mile-a-minute. For an hour or so you have rushed along and passed any number of stations where all the signals were showing “All Right,” and you anticipated nothing to check your rapid progress. If, suddenly, you came to a signal showing “Stop,” what would happen? With the weight of a heavy train behind the engine, you would be unable to obey the signal before you had gone a long way past it. Besides, the abrupt stoppage of a fast-travelling train would throw the passengers from their seats, jerk the luggage off the carriage racks upon their heads, and do no end of other mischief. Obviously, the system of signalling has had to be arranged in a way that prevents such an occurrence.
The situation is met in a simple manner. Whenever an engine-driver is required to stop his train at a signal, he is given warning a long way distant, so as to allow him ample time to reduce the speed of the train before reaching the signal.
Well, so far so good I thought. But the next section used the second-person possessive pronoun and the text I read did, I confess, lead to a certain loss of composure. Listen to these three paragraphs headed DISTANT SIGNALS and I think you’ll understand why.
The first of your signals seen by the engine-driver of a train approaching you from either direction, is a considerable way distant from your signal box. Its position gives it the name of “Distant” signal. Between this signal and the next one will be a distance of, perhaps, 1,000 yards or so.
Now, whenever an engine-driver sees a Distant signal at “Danger” he is not expected to stop at it, but to regard it as a Caution Signal, indicating that he must reduce the speed of his train and be prepared to stop at the next signal, if it should be at “Danger.”
The arm of a Distant signal has a peculiar shape, being notched at the end.
Well, I don’t mind telling you that I felt notched at the end of reading that. I don’t like seeing the word Danger at the best of times but reading it twice within one sentence rather put one off.
But I decided to persevere and so onto the final section in Chapter Two: HOME AND STARTING SIGNALS.
The second signal reached by an approaching train is generally situated in the neighbourhood of the signal box. Its position gives it the name of the “Home’ signal. It is a Stop signal, and must not be passed at “Danger.” The Home signal is usually placed a few yards short of the first siding connection or other pints on the line to which the signal applies. This enables an approaching train to be stopped where it will stand clear of any shunting or other operations to be done over the points. At junctions the Home signals are placed where, in a similar way, they “protect” the lines which other trains may require to pass over.
Farther on, ahead of the station platform and points of any sidings worked from the signal box, and generally some little distance beyond the signal box itself, is another signal. Its purpose is to govern the starting away of trains from your control into the section in advance. The name given it, therefore, is the “Starting” signal.
When the Starting signal is at Danger, the Home signal must not be lowered for an approaching train until the train is close to the Home signal.
Honestly, what did you make of all of that. My eyes just glazed over and my mind too. There were diagrams to go with this gobbledegook but, really, I felt as though I were trying to read a language that I had not previously encountered. My Finals at UCL would be easier than this, I thought. So, I thought I might give shunting a dekko instead. This is what I read:
Here are five trucks (lettered A to E) on a siding. Suppose you require to place the two marked “B” and “D” into a position to be taken by a train which, later, will arrive on the main line. This is how you proceed:-
Join the engine to truck “E,” see that “B” “C” “D” and “E’ are coupled together and that “B” is detached from “A.” Draw forward the four trucks that are connected together. When “B” has passed over the points, detach “B” and push it onto the main line. Again reverse the points, and push “C” on to the siding. In like manner shunt “D” on to the main line, and “E” on to the siding. Detach the engine from “E” and attach it to the two trucks (“B” and “D”) on the main line. Then place these trucks on the siding. They will therefore stand at the “points” or “outlet” end of the other wagons.
When the train arrives on the main line, it must come to a stand a little distance short of the signals. Its engine must be detached and sent into the siding to “pick up” “B” and “D.” It must then push these wagons against the train on the main line. Then join the connecting (“coupling”) chains and the train will be ready to proceed.
Well again, I ask you. I couldn’t follow that, could you? You have to be genius to be a shunter, in my humble opinion, and brave too. And to be frank I’m neither of those. So, I think it’ll have to be my finals at UCL after all.
From The GWR and the General Strike C.R.Potts Oakwood Press
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