Steamed and trained
My home backed on to a railway embankment so I was used to trains. Old steam trains like the Mallard and Brighton Belle used to charge past my house all the time. I did not notice them.
Things were easier back then. There wasn’t the same frenzied pace, obsession with health and safety and personal indifference. Back then people were friendly. The older men would stop and chat, give you a sweet or show you how to throw a hoop and make it come back to you without being suspected of being paedophiles. People were friendly and kids had freedom. That worked both ways. When we were seven or eight Jeff and I used to climb over the back fence and play on the railway embankment. We didn’t go up to the rails and were perfectly safe. But a train driver must have noticed us there and actually stopped the train to shout at us to get off.
Our road was equidistant to two railway stations. Jeff and I would go along to the station at Hersham and chat to the engine drivers. They were very friendly. They let us go on the engine and do all sorts. They would even take us along on the footplate and drop us off at Walton station where we’d walk home. We were allowed to shovel coal into the furnace and pull various levers. When we went past our houses we were allowed to hoot the steam whistles. They made a hell of a din. So technical, at the age of eight I suppose I could say I had driven a steam engine. I am sure that Jeff and I were a great help.
My mum bought me a train spotting book. It was basically a list of engine numbers. All the trains had their own number. When you see it you underlined it. I played in the back garden and tried to note the numbers as the engines went past. But that was useless. I was so used to them that I didn’t notice them coming.
There were a keen group of train spotters at school. I joined in for a bit. I liked the bit where we went along to the footbridge across the line. We’d stand on there as the trains went by and become enveloped in the smoke and steam. That was great fun. I also enjoyed going through the tunnel at Hersham. We’d shout and get echoes and wait for a train to thunder through overhead and deafen us.
The culmination of my brief flirtation with train spotting was a trip up to London. A little group of us ten year olds went up to the big train sheds. I don’t know how we got into the place but we spent the day wandering around the sheds underlining numbers to our hearts content. We climbed up onto footplates and went from train to train. It was wonderful. There were lots of people around but nobody seemed to pay us any attention as we walked across the tracks and watched engines shunting around. There were hundreds of them. I had pages of underlined numbers.
I lost interest after that. Trains were OK but I preferred animals. Looking back it seems amazing that things were so free and easy. Nowadays our children are strangled with safety. They don’t live.
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It is all very sad now. My Jackson C Frank album just turned up, what a shock – I can’t hear it unless I am close, still got probs with my ear but what a voice and the words, will let you know what I think of the rest, but so far it is special thanks for telling me – what a loss.
I love it and it was very special to me – the voice – songs – style. It was 1965 at the start of the British contemporary scene and Jackson had a big impact on everyone.
I can’t wait to hear properly so I can hear his voice more clearly but it sounds so toucing so lovely.
I’m glad you are enjoying it. I was worried that it was nostalgia on my part. I fell in love with it when I was sixteen.
I am hoping I can hear it clearer when this ear clears up, bad enough having very little hearing on the left side without all this problem with the right. Doing well my right eye now has another inefection very bloody don’t know what I have done.
You sound like you’re suffering.
There were some beautiful songs on that album.
Yes I am fed up to be honest, it seems one damn thing after another. Due to have had blood tests this morning but cancelled can’t hear hardly let alone see too well and to be honest I could not be bothered. Yes the song I am so looking forward to hearing, he sounded with my ear up to the player, a very gentle man does he sing about his own life? Rather like Rod I suspect. Really longing to hear him.
Yes. He had a very sad life. You can hear it in his voice. Me and room service we’re living a life of sin.
Shame because I cannot hear it properly, I have been waiting all week for that to arrive, I had three LPs of Rod’s arrive this morning too and I won’t be able to hear them either. What does “the room service” bit me?
Basically he spends his time sitting in his room without going out, feeling miserable.
Sounds familiar, thanks for explaining.
He was terribly burnt when there was a fire in his school which killed many of his friends. He was pulled out with his clothes melted into his back. The scarring and trauma affected him. It took his confidence away and left him psychologically fragile. It came out in numbers like The Blues Run the Game.
I tried to read the booklet in the case but could not see it clearly. That is horrendous the poor chap no wonder he was damaged would be for life. So many people are damaged by what is done to them etc etc, no one should condemn no one is perfect, it to me makes damaged people more precious that they need to be held more and loved. So he sings the truth, his life.
I know – those booklets are terrible. Give me an old vinyl album sleeve any day. The writing is much to small on CDs.
Sadly Jackson never released another album. He had a lot of emotional issues. But he was such a beautiful songwriter and such a gentle man. We talked for ages when I saw him. A lovely guy. He did not deserve what happened to him.
The tragedy is that children are not free to BE children anymore. I worry about what it will be like for my grandkids.
We are in a risk averse litigating society that is strangling us. It is fear-ridden.
Children are precious. To lose one or have one injured must be a tragedy but to live without risk is not living. We have to keep things in proportion. Part of living is defying death.
Reblogged this on Opher's World and commented:
I am not a number.
Excellent post!
Thank you Jennie. Glad you enjoyed it.
I did. 🙂