Tuesday Treasures - June 2021

TUESDAY 29 JUNE

Shining a Light on Stations

Today, we are blessed with an abundance of electric station lighting, perhaps too much when a station can be seen at night from quite some distance! That was not the case in the very early GWR period, when lighting was limited to wall and lamp column mounted oil lamps, which at best only provided a localised ‘pool’ of illumination.

Over time, but still exploiting their existing cast iron lamp columns, these were converted to or replaced by gas and finally electric lamps, the latter, originally inelegantly fed by cables strung daisy chain style between the columns to avoid the cost of buried cables.

The Great Western Trust most fortunately recently acquired the very rare example of an oil lamp casing from Burnham Beeches station illustrated and which is the focus of our Blog today. This remarkable survivor can be fairly confidently dated back to the very opening of this station on 1^st July 1899 so that makes the lamp case about 122 years old!! In fact the station itself, when opened was the only ‘single Island platform’ on the GWR.

We also illustrate a fine photo of this station, from a vast photo collection, taken by and generously bequeathed to the Trust by Michael Hale. Michael was a stickler for proper records, so we know he took it on 15^th May 1959, showing Prairie Tank 6117 on a Thames Valley stopping service bound for Paddington. The signal box on the left hand side was opened around 1898 and closed in 1962.

So, back to the lamp itself. Miraculously, the beautiful coloured glass station name inserts have survived, and on display in the Trust Museum is a fully restored one of High Wycombe. The Trust holds a number of such lamp glasses from other stations, but sadly they are the only remains of what were the contemporaries of our Burnham Beeches and High Wycombe lamps.

The lamp casing was probably ‘saved’ from the destruction of its sisters, when the station was renamed Burnham (Bucks) in 1930 and later in 1975 it finally became simply, Burnham.

In practical terms we should also reflect upon the combined reasons why oil lamps gave way to gas and then electric lighting. Yes, gas lamps needed individual ‘striking - on’ and ‘turning off’ by station staff, but apart from maintenance of their gas mantles, that was a far cry from an oil lamp's demands. A lad porter was expected to individually maintain each lamp interior, cleaning the glass funnel, trimming the wick, topping up its combustible oil, and lighting and extinguishing each one, day after day. All that duty undertaken in ALL weather conditions, when perched precariously on a wooden ladder propped against the cast iron lamp column.

Beyond that physical hands-on effort, we can hardly be surprised to find that the GWR demanded that every station recorded on an appropriate form, not only how many lamps they had, but the quantity of lamp oil consumed! Woe betide a Station Master viewed as leaving lamps on too long and using too much lamp oil! When they converted to gas, the gas meter readings were similarly used to keep a business minded check on excess use!

Given the very wide and interesting subject of railway lamps of all descriptions, the Trust is currently creating a ‘Lamp Room’ display in our Museum building, to progressively illustrate their varied designs and uses.

TUESDAY 22 JUNE

Football Crazy

Arsenal fans in high spirits as they are about to board a train at Paddington for an F A Cup tie against Bristol Rovers on 11 January 1936 (Arsenal won 5-1)

In a previous Tuesday Treasures Blog on 9 March, we described the BRWR ‘Radio Train’ which in January 1960 was advertised to carry Aston Villa Football Club supporters to an away match at Swansea.

The current wall to wall media coverage of the home Nation's involvement (so far that is!) in the Euros Competition gives us an opportunity to reflect more widely upon Football and the Railways and vice versa. Had railways been around in Henry VIII days however, history of football in the UK might have been very different. Then the so called pastime was outlawed as it not only was without rules, it was a close equivalent of inter village mob fighting. Beyond social order impact, Henry saw it as a dangerous distraction from the vital training to perfection of youths and men to be longbow archers!

Suffice to say, things changed radically afterwards, and with the coming of the railways, both football teams themselves, and moreover their supporters could now be affordably transported quite long distances for matches. It has been said that the railways created the vital means by which UK football became national rather than tied to local, village, town or city games.

The Great Western Trust Collection has many football related items, not just for Football Association & League events but a considerable recreational pastime for its staff, more of which in a future Blog.

Anyway, to illustrate just two examples we must first reflect upon ‘International Games’ and what better than this ‘England v Brazil’ example of May 1956. This BRWR printed leaflet on ’How to Get There’ was for those unfamiliar with railway connections to Wembley Station. We can perhaps bring a surprised smile by stating that this ‘Friendly’ was won by England, by no less than 4-2! The England team included Johnny Haynes, Billy Wright, Stanley Matthews and from Manchester United alone, Tommy Taylor, Roger Byrne and Duncan Edwards. Pause to reflect on the tragic loss that later befell that team and our National game? However, remarkably perhaps with home advantage, some 10 years later, at that very same Stadium, England won the World Cup! Truth is stranger than fiction?

More local and on a modest level we also have a BRWR handbill of the ‘English League – Third Division’ games of Reading FC v Norwich City & Watford for March 1948 showing Day Excursion Tickets to Reading from a host of local stations including Didcot, but how sad that so many of those stations no longer exist?

This Handbill, issued in February 1948, merely the second month of the Nationalised Railway existence has another highlight for those sharp eyed observers in that it predates the British Railways Corporate Image introduction of what became the iconic and much admired, and now avidly collected, BR Totem logo. That corporate change was published in a BR document of April 1948 and its consequence rippled across all BR regions in the remainder of that year and beyond, given its massive scale where large stations alone required two totems bracketed on either side of every platform lamp-posts etc!

What railway memorabilia will exist of this year’s Euro Football games, is yet to emerge!

TUESDAY 15 JUNE

Happy Families

With Father's Day next Sunday (20 June) our Tuesday Treasure this week is this charming ‘Happy Family’ poster dating from about 1963, in the Great Western Trust collection. Thanks to travelling by train to the business meeting and having lunch on the Torbay Express, Daddy is coming home early, fed and watered, so he has time to play trains with Timothy's model of a class 52 Western diesel-hydraulic. Happy Family indeed!

The photograph of the Torbay Express passing Southall, hauled by Warship class diesel-hydraulic No D823 Hermes, was taken by Ben Brooksbank on 22 December 1960.

Timothy's Daddy is evidently a high-profile business executive with expense account on a factory visit – the ideal target market for British Railways, travelling first class and dining on the train. But what is better than a single business traveller? Why, of course the entire board of directors!

Didcot Railway Centre's Special Saloon Car No 9002, built in 1940, was used during the war by government officials and service chiefs, and as part of the GWR's Royal Train. It was repanelled inside and refurnished in 1953, but found little use until 1963. It was then advertised for hire as an executive suite in which business firms could hold conferences en-route to visit factories or other installations. The photograph shows the day saloon; the vehicle is also provided with a dining saloon that doubles up as a boardroom table, and a kitchen.

Two of the high profile users photographed in No 9002 were Dr Richard Beeching, Chairman of the BRB, and Stanley Raymond, Western Region General Manager, at the launch of the boardroom on wheels on 24 June 1963.7

TUESDAY 8 JUNE

Glorious Devon

Mindful of HM Government's exhortations to take holidays in the UK this year, we head west to glorious Devon for this week's Tuesday Treasure. Teignmouth has long been one of South Devon's most popular resorts and this brochure from 1936 is a beautiful example of the period. The town offered (and still offers) many attractions including a superb beach together with tennis, bowls and a fine eighteen hole golf course on Haldon Moor near the aerodrome of the same name. Charabanc tours of the surrounding countryside were also available. The famous stretch of railway along the sea wall has been made famous by hundreds of photographers over the years, together with the adjacent footpath running from Eastcliff to Smugglers' Lane just a short distance from Parson's Tunnel.

Travelling to the far north of the county brings us to Lynton and Lynmouth. We have to thank Napoleon Bonaparte for making this remote part of Devon popular with holiday makers as large areas of Europe became off-limits for wealthy travellers during the Napoleonic Wars and in the early 1800s North Devon came to be advertised as Little Switzerland. Stunning scenery, steep river valleys and towering cliffs still bring thousands of tourists to the area every year even though the terrain prevented standard gauge railways from reaching the towns, so horse-drawn carriages and later buses were used for the journey from Minehead Station. From 1899 to 1935 the narrow gauge Lynton & Barnstaple Railway carried visitors across Exmoor to Lynton thence by the remarkable water powered cliff railway (still running to this day) down the hill to Lynmouth. The L & B railway is undergoing a renaissance and a visit to Woody Bay Station for a trip over a short section of the line is highly recommended.

In a few weeks' time we shall travel across the Tamar into Cornwall.

(All items are from the Great Western Trust collection.)

TUESDAY 1 JUNE

A further look into the case books of the Paddington First Aid Post

Visitors to Didcot Railway Centre can discover the remarkable story of how the Great Western Trust helped Marguerite Huggett trace her birth family for ITV's Long Lost Family; Born Without Trace

The television programme Long Lost Family; Born Without Trace, broadcast on 25 May, featured the Great Western Trust's research into the story of Marguerite Huggett who was found abandoned as a baby at Paddington station on 23 July 1946, in a luggage rack on a train from Worcester. You can watch the programme on the ITV Hub catch up service and the story behind the episode is featured in a temporary display in the Small Artefact Museum at the Railway Centre – if you are visiting over the next few weeks, make sure you take a look at this fascinating tale.

The interest this programme generated prompted us to look again at the case books of the First Aid Post at Paddington station, to discover what other interesting reports they have.

Crowds at Paddington Station on a Summer Saturday in 1946

The case books in the Great Western Trust collection cover the period between 1945 and 1947. This was a time when people were able to travel on holiday again, after the war years, and overcrowding at stations and on trains became routine. This photograph of crowds at Paddington station in 1946 was published in the Great Western Railway Magazine, of which the Great Western Trust has a full set in the library. With people jammed together like that it is not surprising that injuries occurred, and the first aid post was there to solve minor cases or send more serious ones to hospital.

Rather startlingly there is another case of a baby abandoned on a luggage rack! She was found on the 6.5pm train to Worcester on 1 April 1947 (case 6971). A newspaper report pinned in the case book reads: “This is the latest of a series of babies found in London during the past few days. A blue-eyed girl of about six weeks, she was left in a luggage rack in a train at Paddington shortly before it was due to leave for Worcester. She is now at Chelsea Institution.” The institution is the same place that Marguerite Huggett was sent to after she was found.

Almost exactly two years before that, there is the strange case of two Found Babies on 5 April 1945 (case 1024). They were discovered in a pram at the station, changed and fed at the first aid post, and handed over to the police. Then the mothers came forward to claim them. A newspaper cutting in the case book gives the story:

“Two four-months-old babies found in one small pram at Paddington.”

“Nowhere could the police find the mothers – and thereby hangs the story of 18-years-old Freda Helen Evans and 19-years-old Nellie May Mobey, who came to the big city to get a better job.”

“Freda and Nellie came from Reading with their babies, stayed the first two nights in an institution, and then went off to an hotel for work. They fed their babies first, and left them at Paddington.”

“And when they came back the babies had vanished – taken to safety by the police.”

“The girls did not report the matter until next morning – one of the points they had to explain to the magistrates when they appeared at Marylebone Court yesterday, charged with neglecting the babies.”

“ ‘We lost our identity cards and were afraid to approach the police,’ they said.”

“But the chairman thought they had been ‘unkind and unmotherly’ and so they went to prison for 14 days.”

The first aid post books record a multitude of other cases, some routine, some tragic, some with an element of comedy. Here are a few we have picked out, in date order.

On 17 January 1945 (case 183) an R Fousan (difficult to decipher his name) described as a radio operator, attended for attention to cuts along base of his left palm. After the wound was dressed he travelled on the 4.15 pm to Barnstaple, with the comment in the book: “On survivor's leave – after second torpedoing.”

On 21 January 1945 (case 232) Lawrence Contrilla, US Navy, attended with two black eyes – over 48 hours old. His treatment was calamine lotion with the comment: “Patient requested some ‘paint’ to hide blackness.”

There were continuous minor injuries to staff, such as on 24 January 1945 (case 268) Mrs Hunt, a traffic porter with a cut right heel. The note is: “While riding on a trolley, some parcels fell off: Mrs Hunt jumped down to replace them and another parcel fell and hit her heel.”

Another porter, Arthur Turner (case 521) suffered a sprained right wrist on 16 February 1945 after: “The West London guard asked Porter Turner to help him close the train door. He attempted to force the handle down by hitting it with a churn; the resultant jerk hurt his wrist.”

Slightly comical (although not for him) was Corporal Griffiths of Headquarters, 11 Group, Uxbridge (case 610) on 24 February 1945, who had slight cuts on his forehead. These happened when: “Cpl Griffiths came out of the lavatory and as the train was slowing he bent down to look out of the window, which he thought was open. Unfortunately it wasn't and he put his head through the glass.”

The next day another with an element of comedy was Mrs Vivien McCourt (case 618) who arrived at 12.30 am on 25 February 1945 with severe laceration to left wrist, requiring a visit to St Mary’s Hospital. This was: “Result of ‘barmaid’s kiss’ in public house brawl with American sailors.”

Then a real tragedy on 27 March 1945 when Mrs Leonard visited (case 907) with babies Patricia 4 months and June 1 year 9 months, passengers to Redruth. Their state was described as “shock and tired” and they were given tea and feed for babies. The reason given was “Bombed out from East End this morning.” That day the last V2 rocket to cause civilian deaths in London had landed on Vallance Road in Stepney.

Another passenger without physical injuries was Mrs Atkinson on 31 March 1945 (case 979), a passenger from South Wales with two children, Kathleen 6 years and Tony 2 years. Her condition was described as “general fatigue”. The children were washed and given milk and “arrangements made for the night. Mrs Atkinson to proceed to Gainsborough (Lincs) in the morning.”

Warrant Officer J W Katon, 42 Squadron, RCAF, had “severely crushed 1st, 2nd and 3rd fingers left hand” on 1 May 1945 (case 1328). The reason given was: “A drunken soldier slammed a door on W/O Katon's hand.” This is one of many injuries described in the books, caused by fingers being trapped in doors.

A member of staff, Miss Katherine Hewitt of Southall, a guard, was treated at 1.50 am on 13 May 1945 (case 1478) with a sprained right thumb. This was caused when: “Passengers stormed the empty rail motor at Ealing Broadway at midnight pushing the guard over and causing her to fall between car and platform. She fell on her hand.”

Next we have a disturbing case of racial assault on 17 June 1945 (case 1848). Mr Shenkar Rao, passenger from Plymouth, visited with a black eye, split lip, scratched and swollen throat, and in shock. This was after: “Mr Rao went to sit down in the compartment (he has recently been discharged from hospital) and an army sergeant objected to is sitting in the same carriage with white men, and assaulted him violently.”

Another case of finger injury in a door was on 18 June 1945 (case 1862) to Matthew H Edwards, a passenger from Stourbridge. He: “went to the toilet; the door was unlocked, but as he pushed the door open, the occupant slammed it on Mr Edwards’ fingers.”

The final report from our brief look into the case books is an unusual method of firing a locomotive by Fireman Eric Jones of Slough. He visited the First Aid Post on 24 January 1946 (case 221) with a laceration to the cushion of the middle finger of his left hand, and shock. The injury happened when: “in putting coal in fire, smoke plate caught his finger and tore it. Patient stated owing to shovel being broken he was putting the coal in with his hands. The train was fast ex Slough.”

The case books provide a snapshot of a little-documented service the Great Western Railway provided for its staff and passengers at a time when the second world war was ending, and before the National Health Service was created.

• Tuesday Treasures - Latest Blogs

« Back To Tuesday Treasures Index