Walks

Swindon and the General Strike Factory walls can sometimes feel like prison walls, But I always thought the Factory walls in Swindon Had a welcoming, warm and friendly feel, Even in the low sun days of midwinter. For this was a railway town, A Great Western Railway Company town, A paternalistic railway company town, With swimming baths and a hospital, And a blue print for the NHS; A Park for exercise and amusement too, And the Mechanics Institute For education, reading and advancement. The largest engineering works in Western Europe, 310 acres, 14,000 employees, Two railway stations: Over 50 million tons of coal passed through Swindon each year: one fifth of the country’s annual output. But when I started train spotting, aged six, In that halcyon summer of 1958, With my in-built respect for the GWR, And its Western Region successor, And all its chocolate and cream nostalgia, How could I have known about the General Strike, In Swindon, thirty-two years before? When we placed pennies on the line, To see how the Cheltenham Flyer Would burnish and flatten those spare coins, And when Sir Felix Pole, Castle class, 5066, Rode rough shod over those pennies, How could I have known that Sir Felix Was a real person from thirty-two years before? The vindictive GWR General Manager during the General Strike? To a boy in 1958, 1926 was more like the nineteenth century, … But on Sunday, 2 May 1926, there were two contrasting events in Swindon: the Archdeacon, Dr. Talbot, preached a sermon strongly condemning a strike; the Trades Council’s second Council of Action conference worked out...