Biography
Adrian is the UK’s foremost railway historian, he writes from his home in Norfolk and has had over 30 titles published. He is also a photographer, lecturer, and volunteer on the local steam railway.
I was born in Reading in January 1941. I grew up on the Reading stations, mainly the GWR one but also the Southern. Reading (General) station had ten platforms and in 1947-53 was a paradise of a place for watching steam engines, GWR and Southern. The latter engines came into the Western station from Portsmouth, many of them ex-works from Eastliegh. I was often allowed to ride on the Station Pilot and gained a good idea of how the engine was operated – and how the the driver and fireman worked as a team. I did not then realise that they working according to a Rule Book but I absorbed the proper way to behave when working on a locomotive. I gained my early training in signalling in 1950 or ‘51 spending regular evenings in the 8-lever Woodley Bridge signal box, in Sonning Cutting. I had no idea that everything the signalman did was laid down in a Book of Regulations but simply absorbed his method of operating as being the correct thing to do. Of course the signalman and the footplatemen were breaking their rules letting me into their world but I was obtaining a very useful apprenticeship.
In May 1953 our family moved to Childrey near Wantage and I moved into honorary membership of the station crew at Challow whose signal box had 51 levers! At Challow I was soon riding on the daily shunting engine and one driver in particular started to coach me in driving and shunting. I became quite competent. I also fitted in a schoolboy career as groom to a couple of show jumping ponies. I was given a pony of my own and was taught to ride and enjoyed three seasons out foxhunting with the Old Berks Hunt.
In March 1956 I joined the Regular Army at Plumer Barrack, Plymouth to be trained as a weapon and drill instructor for the Royal Berkshire Regiment. I was there for 2 1/2 years and had 30 journeys in that time between Reading and Plymouth – the 1.30 Paddington to Plymouth and the 8.30 Plymouth to Paddington – ‘King’ or ‘Castle’ hauled. Passengers for Reading on the 8.30 Plymouth were conveyed in the slip coach from Westbury.
In August 1960 I was medically discharged from the Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (as the Royal Berkshire Regt. had become) and re-joined Challow station crew – for wages this time. I was a porter at Challow, SIgnalman at Uffington in 1961. The branch to Faringdon was still open with an early morning freight train from Swindon. When my shift began at 2 p.m at Uffington I would get there at 7 a.m and ride the pannier tank to Faringdon. Sometimes I was allowed to drive and my early shunting training soon convinced the footplate crews that I was surprisingly competent for a signalman and many a round trip I drove on the branch, shunting the yard at Faringdon and Uffington. I moved to Challow box in March 1962 and met Driver Kingdom. I rode thousands of miles on the footplate as an amateur fireman with him. In April 1965 Reading ‘Panel’ signalbox made Challow box redundant and I became signalman at the new Uffington box – the old box with a new lever frame and new layout. Western Region had lost most of its steam engines by then and a Swindon fieman, Peter Martin, introduced me to the Festiniog Railway. I made almost weekly visits to the Festiniog Railway for firing work until they oil fired the engines in 1970. Also in 1965 I ‘discovered’ the Oxenholme – Shap and the Ribblehead to Ais Gill lines. Thanks to Signalman John Gardener, I was able to spend time, from 1965 to 1968, photoing the Oxenholme-Shap and the Ribblehead-Ais Gill routes and also to work Grayrigg box and obtain the experience of a memorable night shift in Ais Gill box in a storm of rain while the steam engines went by.
