A Privileged Journey Read online

  This first time we felt obliged to return home in time for tea. We dragged ourselves away from our steamy temple, learned a bit more of the Underground system and the long walk between the Piccadilly and Northern lines at Leicester Square and had time for just one photo of the ‘M7’ at the end of platform 11, by the empty barrows and milk churns. The solitary pacific waiting to depart was given little attention — we’d seen Blue Funnel so many times before — but we took more interest as it drew alongside between Queen’s Park and Clapham Junction, and for a few seconds we watched the flailing rods and saw the glow from the fire illuminate the sweating fireman. Then we were slowing to stop, and 35013 uttered its low melancholy hoot as it shut off steam to negotiate the curve and glided out of sight.

  ‘N2’ 69523 (since preserved as GNR 1744) climbs out of the ‘Drain’ at King’s Cross alongside ‘A3’ 60112 St Simon, 13 September 1958.

  Only now was I really aware of one of the consequences of this day, as I found I was scratching my eye, blinking the smarting tears as the smuts irritated the iris. The sensation got worse, and when I finally reached home I was shepherded to the next street, where my cousin, a district nurse, rolled up my eyelid with the help of a matchstick and removed the offending cinders. I blinked once more, felt the relief and ran home, filthy, tired and already anxious to see when I could afford another trip from my savings — pocket money 1/3 a week — and dare another request from my indulgent parents. The evening was spent carefully underlining my ‘cops’ in virgin Ian Allan ‘ABCs’.

  Just once we went out to Clapham Junction to see the LBSC engines off the line to/from Victoria. I remember seeing a few of the efficient ‘I3’ tanks (32028, 32081, 32089) on the Oxted services just before the LM Fairburn tanks took over, but the star that night was the 6.10pm from Victoria, which swept majestically through the station behind my first sight of an ‘Atlantic’, malachite-green 32422 North Foreland. The roll as she took the curve through the station was graceful, and there was only a slight haze from the chimney as the train glided past. Then, as the last coach passed us, there was a billowing of white steam as the engine was opened up on its climb out to Balham. The vision was so fast, over in a few seconds, yet I can still conjure up the slight lurch of 32422 in my mind’s eye as it hit the curve through the platform. My friend and I stood mesmerised as the last traces of smoke drifted into the trees on the embankment at the southern end of the station.

  That summer we had another London day in late July; memories fade, as, for some reason, we had no camera with us. 46224 Princess Alexandra was our second Polmadie ‘Duchess’, and I recall a sparkling 4059 Princess Patricia of Gloucester shed on the mid-morning Paddington–Cheltenham at platform 1, so we must have made a quick getaway from Euston immediately after departure of the ‘Royal Scot’. However, a few days later I was Cedric’s guest for three weeks in his native Yorkshire, staying with his aunt, a schoolteacher, in Hatfield, near Doncaster, on the line to Scunthorpe and Cleethorpes. I think the idea was for him to visit relatives and me to keep him company as a friend, but we spent most of the time, when not playing ‘fivestones’ in front of the aunt’s hearth, on the old cattle dock at Doncaster station, noting the numbers of innumerable ‘B1s’.

  We were accompanied by his dad to King’s Cross and put aboard the train while he was despatched to the front end to collect the number of our train’s locomotive (grown-ups didn’t really understand that number-taking by proxy doesn’t count). He scrawled ‘60033’ in the condensation on our window and then ‘60067’ for the ‘Flying Scotsman’ at the adjacent platform; if we peered out of the window toplight we could just make out its silhouette in the distance. Of course, at Doncaster we did it properly and spent a good few minutes staring at the blue Seagull that had hauled us from King’s Cross on the 10.10 to Leeds.

  Most days we were packed off by bus into town and joined the throng of twenty to thirty youngsters watching the antics of ‘J52s’ shunting portions on and off Hull and Leeds trains to London, the stored hulk of one of the last Ivatt Atlantics (62877) over towards ‘The Plant’, the thrill of pacifics at frequent intervals and the sight of 60082 Neil Gow in full cry on the up ‘Flying Scotsman’. ‘Directors’ came in on trains from Lincoln or Sheffield — 62661 Gerard Powys Dewhurst and 62668 Jutland spring to mind — along with yet more ‘B1s’. Unfortunately we couldn’t afford train fares to visit other locations but took buses to Leeds and Sheffield; the latter’s Midland station produced two original Midland Compounds (41015 and 41019) and a couple of ‘Jubilees’, but Victoria was a great disappointment. When we tried to enter the barrier the ticket collector told us that train-spotters were banned, then relented when he found we came from London. All that for what? One paltry ‘B1’! We paid a visit to relatives in Scunthorpe, which prompted the only train journey of the holiday apart from the outward and return trips from London. We picked up the Cleethorpes-bound train from Thorne behind the highest-numbered ‘B1’, 61409, and returned behind one of Doncaster’s common ‘namers’, 61249 Fitzherbert Wright. Was any train stopping at Doncaster not hauled by a ‘B1’?

  ‘A1’ 60141 Abbotsford on the up ‘Yorkshire Pullman’ at Grantham, 1953.

  (J. M. Bentley collection)

  Locally allocated ‘B1’ 61036 Ralph Assheton in the up parcels bay at Doncaster station, 1953. (J. M. Bentley collection)

  We visited Cedric’s grandmother in Cudworth and, I’m told, upset the elderly lady by making our excuses as fast as we could and visiting the line by Cudworth engine shed; I cannot find such a shed in my records now; I suspect it was Royston (20C), which was populated mainly by ‘4Fs’ and ‘8Fs’. Somewhere from the top of a bus I spied my only Great Central Atlantic, 2909 (in large florid numerals); another time, also from atop a bus, while waiting at a level crossing en route to York, we saw Cock o’ the North on a northbound train of fish empties. York itself was a revelation — besides a few old North Eastern ‘D20’ 4-4-0s there were lots of ‘D49s’, especially the ‘Hunts’; I remember seeing my first, 62751 The Albrighton, running light-engine above us on some brick embankment wall, but others were pottering off to Harrogate and Scarborough from the north end of the station. We visited the old York Museum and saw City of Truro in its cramped shed. When it was finally time to return home we were ushered into a crowded Thompson SK (not even a window seat — grown-ups just did not understand) that had just been hauled into the station by yet another ‘B1’, 61167, and our disappointment was overwhelming until we found we were being hauled out backwards to be attached to the train that had just run in from Leeds at the opposite platform behind blue ‘A1’ 60141 Abbotsford. What a relief!

  Chapter 3

  My first camera

  Brand-new ‘Battle of Britain’ 34110 66 Squadron at Bournemouth Central on a semi-fast morning train to Waterloo, watched by thirteen-year-old trainspotter David, 16 May 1951. (Jack Maidment)

  I spent most Saturdays at my paternal grandparents’, only a five-minute walk from my home, but in the winter of 1950/1 my grandmother died quite suddenly, and various routines changed. She left me £10 in her will ‘to buy something to remember her by’, and with this bequest I bought my first camera, a simple folding Kodak with a basic 1/25sec shutter speed and fixed f8 aperture. Of course, there was only one objective I had with this camera. I’ve scanned my first photo album for photos of people, and apart from a couple of shots of my ‘O’-gauge model railway laid out temporarily in our allotment with my dad and sister in the background and a shot of me on my thirteenth birthday gazing admiringly at brand-new 34110 66 Squadron at Bournemouth Central (taken by my father) I can find none.

  I regret now that I have only a couple of photos of my youngest sister (who was just two at the time), one posed photo of my family around then, with our cat, and a couple of beach photos of that May holiday in Bournemouth, but I must have put them in a separate album. I have just one photo, rather distant, of my grandfather and never took a photo of my maternal grandmother, who lived until 1957,
and only two doors away.

  So, a week after the purchase of this precious object, on 3 April 1951, I spent another day in London with my friend Cedric, of whom, interestingly, I have no photos either. Euston and the ‘Royal Scot’ was again our initial target, and I have that first photo of 46231 Duchess of Atholl swathed in steam, backlit, the sun gleaming off the boiler side. A more fortunate choice of subject was a side-on shot of 46148 The Manchester Regiment running to the turntable tucked away on the west side of the station, for it was still unrebuilt, and I don’t recall ever again seeing an unrebuilt ‘Royal Scot’ engine.

  The author’s first photograph with his new camera: Polmadie’s 46231 Duchess of Atholl on the ‘Royal Scot’ at Euston, 3 April 1951.

  Unrebuilt ‘Royal Scot’ 46148 The Manchester Regiment runs down to the turntable at Euston, 3 April 1951.

  Trainspotters on Paddington’s platform 8 admire blue ‘King’ 6008 King James II after arrival with a train from Wolverhampton, 3 April 1951.

  After that it was Paddington for late morning and lunchtime and a rather nondescript shot of a Landore ‘Hall’ (5902 Howick Hall) — taken, I suspect, because of its rarity value for us young London spotters — and a better one of a blue ‘King’, 6008 King James II, and a group of admiring spotters at the place that was to become my favourite vantage-point, the business end of platform 8, beyond the Bishop’s Bridge Road overbridge. By lunchtime it had obviously clouded over, and a photo I took of Canton’s spotless 5020 Trematon Castle on the 1.55pm Paddington–Swansea and West Wales express shows the white steam gushing from the safety valve merging with a pure white sky. However humdrum the photo, it made a great impression on me; the engine is posed perfectly to show off its handsome lines, it is burnished and gleaming (as Canton’s top-link engines always were), and it was fitted with one of the Hawksworth flush-sided tenders, which, I have always thought, made the ‘Castles’ look more svelte.

  I think we gave King’s Cross a miss because of our Doncaster holiday (recounted in the last chapter) and went to explore Liverpool Street instead. Film was of course expensive then, and the Ilford film I bought had just eight exposures. I’d left some for Liverpool Street, but the dull midday had turned into a late afternoon of steady rain, and the old terminus never rejoiced in the best light for taking railway photos. With such a new toy, I took no pictures there, partly from fear of getting my new camera wet and partly from the well-founded belief that little would come out anyway. I therefore have to rely on my memory. I’m sure Liverpool Street must have abounded in those derided (by me) ‘B1s’, and we can’t have seen any of the brand-new ‘Britannias’, because I would have remembered them. I can remember looking down on ‘Sandringham’ 61619 Welbeck Abbey — we were standing on the raised road for arriving taxis, between the two sides of the station — and 61671 Royal Sovereign, the ‘B17’ rebuilt by Thompson as a two cylinder ‘B2’ and based at Cambridge for royal train duties to and from Sandringham. My overriding memory of Liverpool Street is of those endless yo-yos of ‘N7’-hauled articulated sets rushing in and out on services to Chingford and Enfield and the constant pounding of Westinghouse brake pumps, as though the station had innumerable live heartbeats. On subsequent visits I attempted more photos, some reasonably successfully, but it always seemed murky down there.

  In May the family took a short break in Bournemouth, and I must have spent several mornings before the boarding-house breakfast on the road bridge above the London end of the Central station. I have a nice shot of 34106 Lydford departing on the ‘Royal Wessex’.

  ‘Canton’s immaculate 5020 Trematon Castle ready to depart Paddington with the 1.55pm to West Wales, 3 April 1951.

  I went to Southampton on my own, spotting, coincidentally travelling down behind 34010 and back with 34009. For some reason I did decide to take photos of one or two veterans as well as the Bulleids, and a photo of ‘S11’ 30404, in the bay at Southampton Central is very clear. A couple of days later, on 19 May, I recorded sister ‘S11’ 30403 on a parcels train at Bournemouth, but the weather intervened again, to its detriment.

  In contrast the obligatory summer holiday day in London on 28 July was swelteringly hot and full of the atmosphere of summer Saturdays when the whole country decamped by train to the seaside. We were greeted at Euston by the sight of blue ‘Princess Royal’ 46203 Princess Margaret Rose just arrived on the ‘Ulster Express’; 46230 Duchess of Buccleugh was the Polmadie Pacific on the ‘Royal Scot’, and I have several other 2½x3½in prints taken in the bright light — 46253 City of St Albans picking up a vanfit to add to a holiday express (passengers’ luggage in advance or some scout group’s camping gear?), 45686 St Vincent with its crew chewing the fat before departure for Birmingham, 45525 Colwyn Bay (before the addition of smoke-deflectors) basking at platform 14. Three weeks later I’d saved enough pocket money for another outing (without Cedric this time) and, again in glorious sunshine, took a photo which to me captures the atmosphere of those summer spotter trips — 46120 and 46162 crammed at the end of the wooden platform 13, spotters squeezed between them, both engines blowing off steam furiously prior to departure for North Wales on the ‘Welshman’ and its relief.

  ‘West Country’ 34106 Lydford leaving Bournemouth Central with the up ‘Royal Wessex’, 17 May 1951.

  Drummond ‘S11’ mixed-traffic 4-4-0 30404 at Southampton Central, 17 May 1951.

  Summer Saturday at Euston, with spotters standing between 46120 Royal Inniskilling Fusilier on the ‘Welshman’ for Holyhead and its relief headed by 46162 Queen’s Westminster Rifleman, 18 August 1951.

  Back at Paddington I shot ‘Castles’ and ‘Halls’ (5042, 5063 and 4974) on ECS duties, the record-breaking 5006 Tregenna Castle on the 3.55pm to Cardiff and West Wales, showing off its Canton shine in the bright sunlight, and the 4.10 to Wolverhampton and the 4.15 to Plymouth via Bristol, with 7026 Tenby Castle and the doyen 6000 King George V respectively, side by side. A mogul — Collett-built 9310, with side-window cab — made an appearance, and I first became aware of the Paddington arrival-indicator board’s habit of showing all arriving trains to be 99 minutes late, as it had no space to show three digits under each train heading! Then it was home to my district nurse cousin for the removal of a bumper crop of smuts garnered during this torrid day.

  In between my London train-spotting trips I accompanied my Aunt Doris and Uncle Vic (the district nurse’s parents) to visit a friend of theirs in Axminster. To my disappointment we went in Uncle’s Ford V8 — I think they thought it was a treat for me, as no-one else in the family owned a car. We had a day excursion to the sea at Exmouth, and to my relief we were all too many to get in Uncle’s car, so I volunteered (!) to go by train. A Salisbury ‘S15’, 30826, hauled our three-coach stopping train to Sidmouth Junction, and ‘M7’ 30030 deposited us at Exmouth in time to meet up with the rest of the family. I was saddled with the host family’s daughter (a bit older than I was) for the return journey, and we were dropped at the station just in time to see the branch train for Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth Junction disappearing. I remember everyone being astounded at my nonchalance (and encyclopaedic railway knowledge) as I stated that we’d go via Exeter instead. ‘M7’ 30023 was waiting with an Exeter train, and I had a high old time train-spotting at Exeter Central before a stopper for Yeovil Junction turned up behind ‘H15’ 30330. I’m not sure what I did with my charge during my enforced stay in Exeter — I don’t think she was amused.

  Canton’s 5006 Tregenna Castle waiting to depart Paddington with the 3.55pm to West Wales, 18 August 1951.

  An evening scene at Liverpool Street in 1958, featuring ‘B1’ 61378, ‘Britannia’ 70002 Geoffrey Chaucer at the head of a Norwich express and an ‘L1’ tank on empty-stock duties.

  In early September, before starting at a new school, I was despatched to spend a week with a cousin in Chelmsford. She was a teacher of primary-age children and had me decorating her ‘maths cards’ with small drawings of trains to provoke more interest from the young boys she tau
ght. I escaped to Chelmsford station a couple of times to pursue my hobby — by this time the new ‘Britannias’ were much in evidence. In fact my journey from London to Chelmsford had been behind 70002 Geoffrey Chaucer, and most of the early series (70000-13, apart from 70004 on ‘Golden Arrow’ duties) were well in evidence. The chime whistle was much used, and I recollect a wedding party joining a London-bound train, the best man giving a half crown to the driver, with a plea to sound celebratory whistles as he departed over the viaduct towards the city. Unfortunately the loco on this train was a mere ‘B1’, 61234, so the ensuing shrill whistles were not the symphony that an enthusiastic ‘Britannia’ driver could have performed. A couple of days later a group of boys tried to persuade a ‘Britannia’ driver to use his chime whistle to such effect, but he declined on the basis that he did not wish to cause all the mothers of sleeping babies to complain to head office.