Railway Life Part Three
Railway Life Part Three It’s full steam ahead – Until, freezing in the cab, paper in his boots, He gets stuck in a wind-whistling loop, Out here in some unsheltered, open landscape; Or, shovelling six tons of coal Choking in some seeming endless tunnel, On a...
Railway Life Part Two
Railway Life Part Two But down at the running shed: All is different! Hustle, bustle and red-hot tumult: Fill the tender! Water the tank! Empty the firebox! (Cough on the dust, choke on the fumes, burn your hands.) Smash the clinker! Draw the firebar! Sweep the pit!...
Railway Life Part One
A Victorian Railway Maxim Zealously try to excel. Industry is commendable. Perseverance deserves success. Quietude of mind is a treasure.’ This was a GWR 19th century maxim for its workforce: A world of gaslight, back to backs, the workhouse; The engine shed, the ash...
Shopping in Swindon Railway Works
Shopping in the Railway Works Retail Outlet Shops had a double meaning in my childhood: The obvious, which was the domain of women, Open every weekday except Wednesday afternoon, And the ‘Inside’, which was the domain of men, And accessible to children on Wednesday...
Holiday Haunts 1939
GWR Holiday Haunts, 1939, I bought you at Didcot in 1978: GWR Holiday Haunts, 1939, All sepia tinged arts and crafts, and art deco modernism, And Olde Englande Mockobethan, For this is a book to get you through the winter months of 1938-9, A book full of promise and...
Where the Railway Lies
Where the Railway Lies It was hardly Dombey and Son in Stroud When Brunel brought the railway into town: No earthquakes, or bridges that went nowhere; Instead: Dickensian Cheapside. I walked beneath the beech tree, by the Black History notice boards, Pondering on the...