大象传媒

I remember another strange incident during the war when we were collecting cases of corned beef from the gasworks in Mill Road. I've got an idea there were twelve 7 lb tins of beef to each case and we were bringing in about 5 tons at a time; I well remember it was a terribly cold day.
It was towards the end of January. I am not quite sure of the actual year; I think it was 1943/4. I am not sure. But we were busy bringing this stuff into the station and it was being loaded into the wagons to go to Barry for trans-shipment out to, we understood, for the North African campaign. I can well remember going in for my last load somewhere round about half past three/quarter to four and the boss, the head man of the lot, stopped me as I was going in and he said to me "Driver, I want you to work on tonight so that we can finish this contract";
I can well remember what I said. "Governor, I wouldn鈥檛 work on tonight if you were to offer me ten shillings an hour. I鈥檝e got another appointment which I deem more important than this.鈥�
He was rather taken aback, but I didn鈥檛 stop at that. I pointed to the sky and the sky was like lead, bitterly cold, and it was getting dark at that time of the year at about half past, three quarter to four, and I pointed to the sky and said 鈥淵ou see that lot up there Governor, that lot is coming down during the night, perhaps before, and when that lot comes down, nothing will work鈥� 鈥� and that night we had three foot of snow down and nothing moved for the rest of the week.. This was the Wednesday and we were at a standstill then until the Saturday.
(You worked in Caerphilly all through the war, right to the end of the war)
Yes, from June 1940 to November 1947.
(Towards the end of the war was there lots of stuff going out for D-Day and all that?)
Oh yes, it was all part of our jobs. Not only did we used to keep local people around supplied with the flour from the depots, the other commodities were sent out to go for shipment to feed the troops on the continent.
(So presumably all the air raids began to peter out)
Yes.
(Did they still have to maintain the fire-watches right to the end of the war?)
Oh yes, right to the end of the war. When Hitler attacked Russia a lot of the air raids all over the country, not only locally, ceased or became very spasmodic. Consequently although we still had to carry out fire watching it was a lot easier.
(The railways were run nationally through the war, were they?)
Yes.
(Did that mean you had lots of different wagons from all different companies all mixed up together, it was a total pool system?)
Yes, a total pool.
(What about locomotives. Were they all mixed up much more than usual?)
No, the locos usually stayed on their particular areas.
(You didn't get any of the Midland locos coming down the South Wales line?)
No, no, no. The railways were run in four regions, the Western, the Midland & Scottish, the North-Eastern, and the Southern. They were more or less in groups although they weren't actually named groups, and all we had on the sides of our road transport vehicles was the word 'RAILWAYS', nothing else just 'RAILWAYS', that was all.
I remember another story I was told; I heard in Caerphilly when I went to work in the Goods. I also heard it when I went to live in Caerphilly and went to Vann Road Congregational Church, joined Vann Road Congregational Church as a member. That was the story of a Cockney, a real Cockney who came to South Wales looking for work. He eventually found a job as a porter on a station known as Llanbradach. In those days it was customary for the station master to meet the trains coming in and he would go to the guard's van and pick up any parcels and correspondence, and he would then proceed to walk up the length of the train calling out the name of the station. It is reported, and I have heard it on more than one occasion, that this Cockney being unable to pronounce the word Llanbradach would follow the station master, a few paces behind him; The station master would call "Llanbradach" and the Cockney porter would shout out "Same as him".

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