The Train

It’s a cold, blustery morning with a hint of spring in the air; clouds hurry across a pale blue sky causing sudden showers to wet the pavements of the dull coastal town. It is the end of March 1959, a time when travel of any kind is still imbued with romance and excitement. Long distance air-travel is still something of a luxury for which the few still dress up; jets have recently taken the place of lumbering turbo-prop aircraft allowing destinations which were once a few days away to be only a few hours out of our increasingly busy lives. Each journey is preceded by days of anticipation and eager packing; there is still the sense of going somewhere, leaving and arriving amidst noise and bustle. We have not reached the stage of arriving at a huge sprawling airport with crush-proof baggage, dressed in jeans and running shoes, to join a long queue to have our papers stamped and then to be herded into cramped spaces numbered on our tickets. We are not transported from A to B, personal phones switched off and stowed in our hand-luggage; we are not force-fed with aircraft food off plastic plates, nor are we concerned with what movie may be playing to while away the few brief hours of our high-speed journey; we have not reached the stage of departing one side of the world and arriving on another within twenty-four hours, wondering how we arrived there or what we have missed on the way. In 1959 it is not the arriving that matters, it is the getting there which holds all the pleasure.

Few families own even one car and our towns and villages are not scored with enormous shopping centres and carparks; we take the bus to do the shopping, we go to work by train, we buy tickets instead of carrying credit cards for the purchase of petrol; we cannot plan our journeys by computer; we cannot press a button and have our tickets printed within a matter of seconds; the world we live in is much bigger, much more individual, its nooks a crannies still undiscovered and untrammelled by tourism; the age of the masses is yet to come.

England is still criss-crossed with minor railway lines which are still profitable; country stations still have tended flower beds and heated waiting rooms; we can still sit by the fire, and the art of conversation is still alive; we have not yet reached the stage where our lives are ruled by the television schedule, and we still regard the Sunday chicken as something of a luxury. We know who lives in our street and what they do, how many children they have; we still go to the cinema occasionally instead of taking in a movie; we dress for the theatre. It is 1959.

So it was that, on that blustery morning, the old black taxi deposited us and our various large, leather bags, at the steps that swept up to the main railway station. We had already bought and paid for our tickets and, unheard of as it is today, our seats were booked. We heaved the numerous bags up the steps and through the dark foyer onto the windswept platform to join the already large crowd of people waiting expectantly for the train. It is almost impossible to imagine today the smell of a railway station; in those far-off days there was somehow an odour of stale coal-smoke, damp clothes, the sea, and numerous other scents that whistled through the drafty entrance so fast that you were largely unaware of them. But they were there and they made up part of the excitement of going somewhere. Although nothing much was happening there was a constant buzz of hushed conversations, the occasional clang of a porter’s trolley as it unloaded someone’s luggage on the platform, the sound of a distant taxi arriving or leaving, but over all lay a kind of hushed expectancy, a waiting for something momentous to happen. The cold wind cut in eddies under the bridge and along the platform, causing us to hug scarves tighter and raise collars against departing winter. The large central clock beneath the sooty awning stood at eleven-forty-five and every few seconds we stole a glance beyond the bridge, round the curve of the line, hoping to see something.

Promptly at eleven forty-seven a hissing and clanking could be heard somewhere just out of sight, the other side of the bridge. This hissing grew louder and louder until it was overtaken by a kind of huffing roar; clouds of smoke began to appear through the arches of the bridge, and then, suddenly, with an almost deafening chuff, hiss, and clank, the enormous monster grew out of the bridge until it dwarfed the crowd on the platform. A belching funnel topped a mountain of dark green shiny paint and gleaming brass; massive silver pistons shot up and down, back and forth, a wave of heat struck us from the tender as it slid past, and then came carriage after carriage of dark red and gold, sweating from a recent shower, windows closed and slightly misted from the outside cold. Almost silently now, the enormous monster came to rest against the platform with a final hiss of steam as it curled up from somewhere underneath the carriages. Doors opened with a thud, leather straps waving in the wind, and the scramble to get aboard began. This was the beginning of a journey.

We manhandled our luggage into the corridor and left it by the door while we went looking for the reserved seats. Outside in the windy morning the announcer could be heard above the clamour and hiss reading out the stations of our journey; they were magical names even though they were distorted by the speaker-system and the amount of noise that the arrival of a large train always generates. “Chichester, Portsmouth, Yeoville, Exeter, Okehampton, Plymouth.” Inside, the carriages smelled of soot, steam, slightly of coffee, but most of all of going somewhere. The corridors were jammed with people walking up and down looking for reservations and the atmosphere was warm with the dampness of steam-heating. We found our reserved seats and heaved the luggage along to the compartment and then up onto the rack which stretched above our heads.

Our compartment was not full – there were still three seats vacant – but every seat had a little card screwed above it showing that it was reserved. The seats were of a dark red moquette with arms which pulled down between each place; the window was large and square and when you sat down it came to knee-level; the top section consisted of a ventilator which could slide along into the open position to allow a bit of fresh air to enter the compartment and each place was topped with a framed picture of some seaside spot. The air inside could only be described as a ‘fug’. We struggled out of our overcoats, folded them and put them up on the rack, for this was to be a long haul; we took our window seats and watched the platform expectantly, waiting for the inevitable whistle and the knowledge that, at last, the journey was beginning.

At ten years old it was the first time that I had been anywhere outside the routine of going to school or exploring the local woods and fields with my friends; it was also the end of an era of post-war greyness where life was depressingly the same, day in and day out. Around the corner, at the end of the year, was the beginning of the famous 1960s: the start of inflation, the end of the security of knowing just where we would all be at the end of each month, the era of free love, flower-power, and the end of many institutions to which we had all become accustomed. By the end of the coming decade many of the smaller railway-lines would be closed, steam would be largely a thing of the past, cars would be the rule rather than the exception, and people would begin to fly to ever more distant destinations, becoming more and more casual about it as time began to fly past for all of us. In a sense, 1959 marked the beginning of the end of innocence.

After precisely three minutes, the enormous twelve-carriage red and cream monster began almost imperceptibly to move, sliding out of the station away from the platform and pulled by this enormous streamlined relic of the early 1940s which belched and puffed great gouts of black smoke into the cloudy sky. The suburban back gardens began to slide past, at first slowly and then with increasing speed until one blended in with the next. Level crossings flew past outside the window, small stations caused the train to rock excitingly as it dashed westwards, and from each bridge under which we steamed small groups of children ran in and out of the cloud of smoke that marked our passing. We were finally on our way.

The grey of suburbia gave way to the sound of the click-clack of the wheels over the joins in the rail to the green of fields filled with new grass, shining with a recent shower of rain, and in the background we could see the hills and hedges of the South Downs which, in turn became once more a jumble of houses, gardens, and factories as we slowed into Portsmouth. Up and down the carriages bustled a man in uniform announcing that the first sitting for lunch was now open, so we stashed our bits and pieces and, as the train once more slid into motion, staggered along rocking corridors until we reached the dining car. This was a long saloon through which the passage led, seats arranged in groups of four on the left and two on the right, each seat facing a table set with a spotless white cloth on which was set the required number of places. Each place had silver cutlery, its own napkin and wineglass, and each plate, when it came, bore the insignia of British Railways. It was a heady experience to sit at such a table and be served good food while looking out of the window at total strangers who stood waiting for some other train, huddled against the cold and wrapped in raincoats against the chilly March showers.

As we left the big port cities of Portsmouth and Southampton behind us, the sun burst from behind the scudding clouds; occasionally the view from the window was hidden behind a streak of steam from the engine and the cutlery jangled merrily as we rocked and rattled our way through small country stations at speed. Like royalty we sat back and enjoyed our roast beef and our chatter as the rest of the world went about its daily business, shielded from us by a sheet of glass while we, in our normal indoor clothes (although somewhat smarter for the occasion) enjoyed the warmth and security of our isolation. The world outside was still turning, still doing its shopping, its farming, delivering post in suburban streets, but we were going somewhere; we had all the trappings of excitement and movement and the knowledge that this was a day unlike any other.

After lunch was over we returned to our compartment, warm and replete with good food and enjoyed the ever-changing scenery as the train steadily steamed westwards. Ploughed fields which had been brown in Sussex and Hampshire became red as we crossed Dorset; hills which had been low and rounded became higher, and roads which had been wide and flat became narrow and winding and edged with high hedges. It suddenly rained while we stood in Chard station but the sun soon shone again, somehow brighter this time, as we crossed into Devonshire and the shadows began to lengthen into late afternoon.

All was hustle and bustle at Exeter Central where we stopped for ten minutes or so, the loudspeakers on the platform telling us to change here for Dawlish and the southern towns, but we were soon on our way again, this time close to the wilds of Dartmoor with its barren hills and bare trees, and at the end of the afternoon we pulled gently into Okehampton. We gathered our bags from the luggage rack and walked down the corridor to the open door to the platform. Okehampton was a sleepy station whose only claim to fame seemed to be that it was the junction for the branch line on which we were to continue our explorations.

As the long cream and red monster huffed its way out of the station and into the darkening distance we crossed the platform to another smaller train, this time in the green livery of British Railways, which waited, four carriages behind a much smaller engine; small puffs of steam came from beneath each carriage and we seemed to be the only people on the platform. Opening one of the doors, we climbed aboard and stashed our luggage in one of the rear compartments, having been warned that the train would split at Tower Hill, the first two carriages taking the northern line to Bude while the remainder of the train would continue south-westwards to Padstow. Since there was an hour before its scheduled departure, my mother asked one of the men in uniform if we could leave our bags on the train while we went for a cup of tea.
“You’m leave ‘em where ‘e likes, m’dear. They’m quite safe,” he encouraged, as he walked down the platform.

As a ten-year-old who had never been anywhere, I couldn’t understand a word he said, but it was fine and we climbed the steps up the bridge and crossed the lines to the station cafeteria where we had a rather watery cup of British Railways tea served in apparently indestructible white china.

At just before six o’clock we climbed back into the train. Outside, the gas-lamps were already giving off their steamy, greenish glow, and the quiet countryside was disappearing into the approaching night. With a few creaks and groans the train began to move and soon we were slowly chugging our way along a winding track with the sound of the river Dart chattering away somewhere below us; we seemed to be virtually the only people on the train. The night air smelled of all the scents of spring: we could almost see the catkins on the trees and feel the whisps of mist which clung to the lower slopes of the moor.

Small country stations marked points of hesitation in our journey, and I remember clearly the brighter and larger appearance of Launceston as we stopped there for a few minutes. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, dark now, we shunted back and forth at Tower Hill, and then we were on our way once more and into the unexplored wilds of North Cornwall as night finally wrapped us in our own little cocoon of electric light reflected in the dark window-panes of the compartment. I was tired and sleepy with all the excitement of the day, but I remember well the three stations where we stopped. I remember the strange names they bore: Egloskerry, Tresmeer, Otterham.

At Otterham, we gathered up our bags, opened the door into the quiet night, and stepped down onto the still platform. Owls hooted somewhere nearby and small insects buzzed around the gas-lamps as we walked slowly towards the station buildings where a small man in tweeds and a battered pork-pie hat waited for us. The three of us made up the entire complement of humanity on this rather deserted and lonely platform. The stranger ambled up to us and took our bags.
“You’m bin ‘itch-‘ikin’, m’dear?” he asked my mother as we walked into the building. For a moment she looked surprised – lost for an answer. Perhaps, like me, she didn’t understand him either.
“Oh, you mean ‘hitch-hiking’”, she laughed as we walked out of the building towards the green Austin Somerset which waited just outside the station. “No, why do you ask that?”
“Well,’ he said, ‘train’s late. I’m waitin for ‘e for more ‘n twenny minutes,” he grinned as he threw the bags in the boot and opened the doors for us.

As we drove off into the unlit night and down endless winding lanes of apparently empty countryside, past Tresparrat Posts, and other little hamlets whose names I completely forget, I nodded with sleep in the leather back-seat. Our journey, the first of many for me, had come to an end, and with it came the end of one of the most memorable days of my childhood, but one which I would never forget and which I would always strive to repeat.