I worked for British Rail Southern Region
Central Division as a “Conductor guard” for a very short period from in 1983 and
1984, but that, and my interest in Railways has shaped my life quite a lot.
At the suggestion of my son Sam I have started this
blog to describe a few things relating to my life and railways.
I liked, no I loved working for British Rail,
but there may have been an element of masochism. The general public didn’t and
don’t like the railways. I think the attitude towards BR in the 1980s is best
summed up by me relating the following. I was in my BR uniform in Greenwich one
afternoon at about 15:00 on my way home from work when some stranger stops me
and starts having a go at me for not being at work, and accuses me of being on
strike. I had worked more than 8 hours. Had set off for work at about 04:00,
walked from Greenwich to New Cross on icy pavements, New Cross being the
nearest place with a train to London at that time of the day, then after work
was having to lug my kit and thick overcoat home again in time to eat get to
bed early to get up at the crack of dawn the following day as well.
It was a real pain having to go to work early
in the morning, when the temperature was really cold, but then come home in the
afternoon when it was warmer, considerably warmer, but being forced to wear or
carry your warm layers as you’d need them the next morning. (It could be a cold
job: there were a number of the old men working as and training as guards who
said they wore their wives worn out tights under their trousers when it was
frosty!)
I also had passengers on a train complain about
me being late turning up and thus delaying them, when in actual fact I was a replacement
guard, as the booked guard was stuck somewhere else in another train. And, while
my job that day was to cover exactly such problems, by working the train in
question I was then going to work beyond my allotted hours for the day, so they
had been about to cancel the service altogether.
British Rail felt to me like more of a National
company than a Nationalised one. The idea that the government or a ministry
were running it was ridiculous, they merely restricted the budget and set a few
vague parameters; it was the ordinary members of staff running things; doing
their level best with limited resources. I worked on trains that were designed
in the nineteen forties and built in the nineteen fifties. How many ministers
were driving around in cars or that vintage! I recall Mrs Thatcher once saying
that she didn’t like to go by train as it was unpleasant and made you so dirty,
she was right, but that was hardly BRs fault: would she have wanted to turn up
to a summit being driven in a war-vintage Humber!
However, if you travelled around using a staff
ticket you got treated like a member of a big family. It made no difference if
you were based in South London, but travelling in Devon or Worcestershire or
Essex, you were always treated like one of “us” by staff: ticket collectors,
platforms staff etc. when they saw you has a staff ticket. There was not
exactly a “secret handshake”, but anywhere and everywhere you went while at
work and in uniform the greeting exchanged was “All right mate!” Occasionally
the greeting would even do the job if you were not in uniform. I felt more
camaraderie at BR than I ever did at boarding school. And I have not got out of
the habit; to this day I still say hello to drivers and guards or tram drivers
anywhere I encounter them.
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