Fred

Fred Harman - Carriage & Wagon Volunteer maintaining and restoring steam era railway carriages and wagons.

As a young trainspotting schoolboy at Ealing or Southall could I imagine one day I might be volunteering on always old, and frequently battered carriages needing rather more than a splashed coat of paint? The famous President Kennedy quote ‘Ask not what your country can do for you….’  became ‘Ask what your Preservation Society can do for me'. Being retired 2 years in my late 60s, becoming bored with domestic DIY, missing varied social interaction, and grandchildren now off to nursery and school – could I be pointed towards a new role? Well Didcot and the Great Western Society proved to be more than an occasional visit with little ones more interested in the picnic than old carriages.

I noticed an invitation to consider volunteering in the Echo, but apart from years of DIY, what value could I be? One Saturday I alighted from the train at Didcot on my own for once, ready to be told I couldn’t be trusted to wave flags on platforms, chuck coal into boilers, needing a CRB check to talk to little ones etc. So what might I be qualified to actually do? I wandered around and found myself walking through the engine shed, impressive stuff but I could do little more than wield a screwdriver, a hammer and a paintbrush. Emerging into daylight I found a mysterious door marked ‘Locomotive Workshop – no admittance’. My spirits dropped and I turned away only to find really unloved carriages and wagons looking destined for the scrapheap. I was to discover we had rescued them from the scrapheap!

Finally, I walked towards the shed in the distance, knowing it contained carriages. The frontage path looked a bit careworn and barriers discouraged visitors from getting up close and personal. Access had been what I had hoped for as nothing had triggered an interest in using my tiny repertoire of skills. Someone voiced a rescue asking could they help? Very quickly I was invited to join the luxury of the inner sanctum – The Riding Van! A mess wagon in other terms. Here was quite a mixture of C&W volunteers it turned out, but mostly a lot younger than me! Someone thought I could do preparation stuff and maybe paint, and that teams came on midweek days including some retired people, so Tuesday or Thursday might be best to see what could be sorted out.

One Tuesday I duly turned up, feeling ready to be ignored, but was given a large job that had been started but which I could continue. The Siphon G needed a lot of sanding down, priming, undercoating and eventually taking up to finish coats. I think the chaps thought I couldn’t really do much harm. It was in a pretty poor state already. So began my last 6 years, but hey who’s counting? A variety of jobs has come my way, and I have never looked back. I have new friends of different age groups, sharing good sense of humour and we look out for one another. The job gets me up in the morning once a week, I take 2 trains and I walk a fair bit. The onsite exercise is very good for me, except the knees and back sometimes tell me I’m not 30 anymore! Incidentally the team turns out some terrific carriages and wagons, something that makes us feel very proud. What would I be doing without this? Probably getting to know daytime television, and becoming even more a grumpy old man!

The first step to becoming a volunteer is to join the Great Western Society - the Charity that runs Didcot Railway Centre.

We need volunteers to carry out all types of tasks - see the opportunities across our departments here.

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