大象传媒

I was born in the station house at Weston-on Trent, Derbyshire. Dad was a fireman, on the railway. His job was to keep the fire going in the train. We lived there until he got a house in Derby near the arboretum. grandad was a plate layer ganger for the railway until he had a stroke.
I went to school on Nightingale Road and then in Allenton until I was 14 and then I got a job at the hospital in 1936 as a messanger lad. My name was down for the railway and Rolls Royce and I went to night school to improve my education for Royces but nothing came of it as there were no jobs. I started on the railways eventually as a junior tube cleaner in 1939. I worked at number 4 shed, built around 1892. It was a double shed with two turntables inside,one outside and a coal hopper. it was gas lit until after the war and people said the light shone better inside because of it. If the air raid warning came it was somebody's job to turn all the gas taps off. Derby station was bombed very bad and there was a Derby fireman killed at Birmingham New Street which was the first Derby civillian casualty during the war. A slither of glass fell off the roof and killed him. he worked an express train Flat hat Harrison was the driver, who had stayed on the footplate. They called him that because he always wore his hat flat down. The Fireman was Tommy Sherrin. We used to have concert parties before the war where he used to recite. I always remember him saying 'I'm a stoker, I'm a stoker, i juggle with fire and poker.' These would happen in the Kier Hardy Hall and the Railway cricket and football clubs.
Being a tube cleaner involved poking the tubes with a long rod or blowing them out with a steam valve and then going inside and cleaning the firebox when it was cold. That was a terrible job, dusty and dirty. you had to be agile. When the women got to do the job during the war thay had masks. One woman who was pregnant, got stuck in the firehole. Edna, she's still alive and often brings it up! There was another lady who worked there during the First World War and she came and helped during the second. They were all local women and some cleaned the carriages and portered.
I only did my job for a few months and then made it to an ordinary cleaner. Because there were rumours of war it wasn't long before the order came that 17 year olds could be passed for firemen providing they were on 'shed and shunts'. I was the very first to do that.
We also hadother labouring jobs to do. I had to stack coal in case something happenned to the mines. Italian prisoners helped with that. I was also picked with another lad to clean the oil tanks in the oil stores because there was only a narrow hole to get in. We had to clean the sludge out of the bottom.
There were so many firemen during the war they ran out of numbers on the paycheques and so had to use letters of the alphabet. We needed so many they were fetching them off the street. There were fitters, who mended the engines, boiler washers, coal men, ashpit men, brickarch men - mending the brick arches. You had to put 6 engines away before you could go home at the end of your shift and people turned a blind eye to the rules and regulations. The drivers did three and then let the firemen do three in gangs of four - boiler, motions, tender and cab - making sure it was clean. Going to the men's room was prohibited until it was breaktime. There were a lot of nights and we'd sing. When someone got fed up there'd be a greasy slop come through the air to shut you up!
The depot operated 24 hours a day, every day. You were supposed to work 8 hours but there was never any telling what time you'd get back. You could be anywhere and then you'd have to get home. Sometimes you were put in lodges, sometimes barracks, like at Crewe and Peterborough. Derby had one on Siddals Road.
The furthest I went was to Carlisle twice but that was unusual. Leeds had a terrible barracks, right in the yard so it was noisy and full of cockroaches. you'd often wait for someone to get up and start their shift then get into their bed. During the war there would be lots of trains to carry to carry the troops. I went to Gloucester a lot on trains carrying Canadian and American troops down to Sailsbury and the south coast. Every time you completed 65 journeys you got a pay rise.
During the war we had blackout sheets up so light from the fire wouldn't shine through and we'd use them in bad weather too.
I was lodging in Birmingham during one of the blitzs. I looked out of the window and saw fires all over the city. I thought it would be too dicy to go to bed and my mate came and fetched me and took me to the shelter.
On another occasion one of the first passanger trains going to Birmingham only got as far as Bromford Bridge because a bomb had dropped on a bridge approaching New Street Station and severed the line so no trains could get beyond Birmingham. I think it was more luck than judgement by the Germans. We had to unload everyone and get them on the buses. Another time we had an air raid warning and all hell broke loose when the guns on St. Mary's race course went off. I said to my driver "good heavens Perce" and turned round to find that I was on my own. He'd left me for the shelter! I couldn't follow him because of all the shrapnel coming down. I had to wait for a lull before I could go and find him. We set off and there was another air raid. I heard the noise of a bomb falling but I never heard it explode and then there was a sheet of flame over the Mansfield Road Bridge and it hit the gas main. I thought that was it. But an express came and stopped and we rode on his foot plate until there was a lull.
The lone bomber that bombed Royces followed the railway line round. You could see the glow of Coventry when you went via Tamworth when there was a heavy blitz on.
We had what we called 'The Lazy Layman Link'. That was local work where you didn't go out of sight of St. Andrews Spire. There were handpowered turntables in some of the sheds and getting ruptired on these was a common complaint. At one period we had an RAF doctor and he started failing men for ruptures and was failing more than he passed. I think he wanted drivers to be as fit as spitfire pilot standard!

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