大象传媒

I was only six years old when the war started so apart from helping to collect waste paper I didn't contribute much to the war effort.
My father however was the Station Master of Berkswell on the London to Birmingham railway line, six miles north of Coventry.
At Berkswell there was a branch line that ran to Warwick and it was decided that if ever Coventry station was out of action the trains would be diverted to Warwick and then rejoin the main line again south of Coventry.
When the main raids at Coventry took place my father couldn't rely on the telephone so there was only one thing to do, and that was to go and have a look.
He arranged for an engine to come out from Birmingham and he set of. After a while there was no track left so there was only one thing to do,walk.
He walked into the main station at Coventry and informed them that he would divert the trains at Berkswell and they arranged for buses to run between Coventry and Berkswell.
There is a post script to this story.
Later in the war a book came out called I think Transport Goes To War and in the railway section they told my fathers story.
They didn't mention his name but they told how the Station Master of the nearest junction went into Coventry, it was factual until they reached the point where he had to walk then someones imagination ran riot.
It said as far as I can remember that in true railway tradition he donned his Station Masters hat and marched bravely forward.
Up to when he read that my father had always been very careful not to swear in the house but he forgot himself that day and said "If those silly so and so's at Euston (LMS HQ) think that I was going to wear my so and so soft hat when there was all that so and so stuff falling out of the so and so sky they must be out of there tiny minds".
I learnt a lot of new words that day.

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