The Enginemen, Chapter 14

Chapter 14: October 1962

George sat in the deserted office staring at the piece of paper in front of him. It was a hand scrawled note from Driver Peplow requesting his attendance at a disciplinary appeal due to be heard the following morning. He’d asked to see Peplow when he booked off duty today to go through the case and see whether he thought he had grounds for appealing against the depot manager’s verdict. He’d called on Charlie Firth, the most rotund of the Running Foremen – ‘Firth the Girth’ was his nickname among the younger drivers and firemen. Peplow had been covering a late running freight turn on the Wolverhampton road and wouldn’t be on shed for at least another hour. George got himself a fresh pot of tea and contemplated the changes that had transformed his life over the previous six months.

He pulled out his wallet and stared at the photo there of his five month old granddaughter, Anita, whom everyone called Annie. He had a picture of Andrew and Jason as well, his son, Paul’s boys, but Annie was special. He saw the mite every day and if anything had taken his mind off Florrie’s absence, it was the presence of his gurgling little girl. At first Eva had looked after her as she’d not returned to school after the birth.

Then during the August holidays he’d had a serious talk with Eva about her future education. She’d missed her ‘O’ levels that year and George had impressed on her that she should continue her education and take some subjects in November and more the following June. She’s argued the impossibility of this with Annie to look after and George had discussed the matter with her school Head and hit upon an ideal solution. The woman had recommended that he employed a part time tutor for Eva, the school would supply her with the required text books and curriculum for the exams she was to be entered for. Then she’d gone one stage further and found a teacher who’d resigned after a family tragedy and who was willing to try to resume her life with part time work at a rate that George felt he could just about afford.

At first Eva had resisted the idea, but he’d interviewed the woman, a Shirley Armstrong by name, and she and Eva, after a few days of circumspect testing of each other’s boundaries, actually seemed to have hit it off together. He tried to arrange the woman’s attendance to coincide with his off-duty hours so that he could look after Annie while Eva was busily occupied with her lessons and he’d had many a chat with Shirley while Eva was revising and Annie was asleep.

He’d not pushed her at first about the circumstances of her misfortune and neither had she said much to him about Florrie though she’d noticed all the photos on the mantelpiece and had checked that they were of his wife. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but she’d seemed vaguely familiar to him, as if he’d seen her before, but when he questioned her about where she lived and her previous teaching experience, it had not rung any bells. He felt easy and at home with her and they’d spend time together with increasing frequency talking about Eva’s progress, then more and more about other inconsequential matters, events in the news and programmes on the television, programmes which sometimes they watched together while Eva was feeding Annie, for the little girl was not prepared to wait until her mother’s lessons were finished!

Then one day she’d talked about her family. She’d been on holiday in Cornwall, the first proper holiday they’d had for several years. She’d had a six year old boy, Sandy, and he’d been so excited. Then one day he got blown out to sea on the rubber dingy they’d bought and her husband had swum out to retrieve him and they’d both been caught by the current and….. She’d choked at this point and tears came to her eyes. She started to apologise and George placed his hands on hers and let her cry quietly for a moment.

Then he’d told her about Florrie and afterwards they’d been able to talk about their lives when their loved ones were still beside them and the funny things that had happened and the way in which they seemed to have such similar views on almost everything. She was a fixture now in his home. At first she’d come for about four hours, five days a week, but they had extended this by mutual agreement and Shirley Armstrong had requested very little extra for the additional flexible hours she now worked. The arrangement would last at least until Eva had taken her final subjects in June.

Paul had been a bit disappointed that his father had not been able to help him more financially. He’d been given the opportunity to take a partnership in the garage and car maintenance workshop, but George felt that he’d had to give priority to Eva’s educational arrangements. He wondered sometimes if Paul resented the attention and resources he was now giving his youngest. He felt guilty that he spent far more time with Eva and Annie than with his grandsons and he rarely went round to see Paul and Maggie at home though Florrie had spent at least a day every week there. Paul seemed to understand and he’d assured him that Maggie was alright with it, she understood why he had to spend his time and money on Eva and her daughter.

If anyone gave him cause for concern, it was surprisingly Derek. He was away from home at college most of the time and George thought that he would have been less affected by the loss of his mother and the changed routines at home.

Derek had been obviously upset at the funeral, well, everyone was – that was natural. When he came home for the summer vacation, all he seemed to want to do was to get out of the house. George thought he’d spend time with his sister and his new niece, but he ignored the child and was quite hostile to Eva. He’d tried to have a heart to heart with him, but the boy had clearly not wanted to talk. He got the feeling that he couldn’t wait to get back to his mates in college.

Then one night he thought he’d heard sobbing coming from his room. He’d got up, put his dressing gown on and tapped on the youth’s door and gone in. Derek had tried to hide the fact that he’d been emotional, but his eyes gave him away. He’d tried to reassure the boy and wondered perhaps if he, being away from developments at home, had brooded on the death of his mother and had been more upset than any of them had realised. Even then he clammed up after a while and wouldn’t talk about Eva, Annie or Shirley, especially Shirley whose presence in the house he seemed to resent. He’d gone back to his university three weeks previously since when he’d heard nothing from him at all.

Florrie’s friends from the church had kept in touch, most of them anyway. The Minister had been most assiduous in maintaining contact and had been a practical sort of fellow who’d never tried to preach at him or show any displeasure or rebuke at Eva’s behaviour and circumstance. He’d tried to involve him in some activities at the church but most clashed with his hours of duty. They’d discussed politics a number of times and he’d warmed to the man when he said that he was a socialist and clearly meant it. He called only yesterday and they’d expressed great concern at the growing threat of nuclear war over Kruschev’s missile base in Cuba and Kennedy’s response. They’d hoped that Kennedy knew what he was doing and that the potential conflict would escalate no further.

George yawned and looked at his watch and poured himself another cup of tea.

Things had changed too at work. Philip Doig had persuaded him to stay in his post in the union – allegedly for his own good, but George suspected that the Shedmaster preferred him to a more militant individual who might get elected in his place should he resign. He’d suggested, however, that he spend a few weeks on a diesel conversion course and he’d learned both the ‘Warships’ and the new 2,700 horsepower diesel hydraulic ‘Westerns’ as they were known. They’d taken over several of the West of England turns from the earlier hydraulics and completely replaced the ‘Kings’ on the Wolverhampton road at the beginning of the Winter Timetable. A row of these powerful engines were stored round the back of the Factory awaiting their fate – it seemed a shame but times moved on. Doig had hinted strongly that if he got some experience of the ‘Westerns’ on the road he’d be in a good position to apply for a couple of Traction Inspector’s jobs which would become vacant after Christmas.

So he’d changed links at the end of July after he’d passed out on the diesels, and had turns to Wolverhampton, Bristol and Exeter in between official union duties. 5056 had gone back into the pool along with 5034, and at the end of the summer service, she’d been transferred away to Oxley on the London Midland Region, while his old engine had joined the others on the scrap road. He’d been to find her once for old times’ sake and a sorry sight she looked, name and number-plates removed, gathering rust on her wheels, her cab dusty and the cab floor littered with a few lumps of coal spilled from the tender.

It had been a good time, thirty years working on steam. He didn’t miss the oily dirty work of preparing the engines in the pit or the exposure to the elements in foul weather, but he’d had a relationship with the old engines – he couldn’t really explain it rationally – they seemed human, had their own individual personalities, there was that comradeship with your mate, the satisfaction of a challenge met when you’d completed your trip on time against all the odds when your engine had played you up and refused you an easy ride.

He’d miss it, he knew, but there were compensations. He could wear a white shirt to work now and the reduction in laundry bills helped, as he’d only persuaded Eva to wash her own baby’s nappies. And the comfort of the diesels’ cabs and the easy view ahead avoided the strain of searching for the signals. But he couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous, uncertain if he could cope if his engine developed some technical problem. Experience will come, he told himself, I know as much as the other drivers at our depot.

But he’d felt helpless on the one occasion that his engine had died at Banbury on the last up Birkenhead and he’d had to wait for over half an hour before they’d turned out an old ‘49’ and attached it inside, so that he remained in charge of the brake. During the wait, he’d tried everything he’d been taught, but he’d not raised even a murmur from the twin diesel engines and he’d been mortified to watch his passengers looking angry and lost as they arrived in Paddington after many of the last services to the suburbs had already gone.

He looked at his watch again. Peplow really should be here by now. He’d not spoken to him since he returned from sick leave the previous week and he’d heard that he’d taken the condemnation of his engine very badly and had ranted at the Running Foreman, then gone off in a huff and had been sulking ever since. He wasn’t really looking forward to this interview because he knew how awkward the man could be, but he was entitled to support at the appeal and George was not really certain of the facts and how defensible the man’s actions would be.

At last the door of the bare office pushed open and Peplow came in, threw his bag on the floor and flopped into the other chair at the table.

“Gone to f***ing pot, it has. Glenn goes three times round the earth and I spend all f***ing afternoon dribbling from Banbury to Acton with a bloody great 9F which won’t steam because no-one’s cleaned the tubes since God knows when and I’ve a slip of a boy firing who’s never been on one before.”

“Calm down, James. You won’t do your blood pressure any good!”

“What’s happened is enough to put up anyone’s blood pressure. I had a damn fine engine which they’ve consigned to the scrap heap and I’ve had three different engines this week, none of which was a patch on old 5008, even in her high mileage state. It’s a criminal f***ing waste, it is!”

“Well, let’s sort out your spot of bother on the newspapers. That’s what I’ve come for. I want to get off home, but I need your side of the story before I speak on your behalf tomorrow. I gather your Form 2 puts a ‘Severe Reprimand’ on your record. Do you want to fight it?”

“Of course I bloody do. I’ve a spotless record, I was proud of that, and I was doing my best to make up time which management had lost because they’d no spare man to cover my mate when he had an accident. They should be giving me a bloody medal, not a Form 1.”

“I gather you’re accused of excessive speed. What were you doing?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It was a bit rough at Severn Tunnel Junction because we’d come out of the tunnel at quite a lick and I underestimated when to stick the brake in. Perhaps we were doing 50-60.”

“In that case you must have built up a hell of a speed in the tunnel.”

“The speedo said 98 at the bottom I think, but there’s no line restriction there. She may be high mileage but she was in good enough nick. I saw to that.”

“Your fireman put in a report claiming it was dangerous and I understand that he wouldn’t come back with you.”

“He was inexperienced. He wasn’t used to fast passenger work. He got scared. It was quite safe. I knew my engine, she was a bit rough but I’ve been on a lot worse.”

“Couldn’t you have taken the lad’s inexperience into account and eased up a bit when your saw his concerns?”

“Why? I’m paid to run the newspapers to time – it wasn’t my f***ing fault that management had no proper cover.”

“Is that the line you want to take at the appeal tomorrow?”

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I know my speed was a bit over the limit at the junction as we left the tunnel, but there’s a good safety margin in the restriction. It may have been a bit uncomfortable but it wasn’t dangerous.”

“Okay, James, I’ll do my best for you. How are things going with the rest of the drivers? Are you back on reasonable terms with most of them?”

“I’ve no idea, ask them. They don’t talk to me much and I don’t talk to them. It doesn’t bother me. I prefer it that way.”

“Are you still on your own at home?”

“Yes, and that’s the way it’s going to stay!”

“Alright, James, don’t bite my head off. I only asked. Don’t you get a bit lonely?”

“What’s that to you? I’ll live my life, thank you, and you live yours.”

George gave up. He lit up another cigarette and thought to himself that he really must try to give the wretched things up. He’d doubled his daily number of fags since Florrie died and he could see Eva didn’t like him smoking over the baby. He stubbed out the cigarette before he’d half finished it and dismissed James Peplow with a flick of the wrist.

He found it difficult to have much sympathy for the man but he was aware that most of his colleagues at the depot had none at all. Part of him was a bit sorry for the guy; he knew how much the loss of his own locomotive had hit him. The man had been unhealthily obsessed with the engine, that was obvious, but even if he wouldn’t admit it, it was obvious he was lonely. He knew he’d looked after his widowed mother for years and had no apparent strong relationship with anyone since she’d died. He wondered how he managed. He was a secretive man, that he knew. It would do him good to spend more time with the other men, relax a bit, go to football, but he kept himself to himself. He couldn’t really tell what was going on in that brain of his. Oh well, he sighed, it’s none of my business. I must get back home and take over from Shirley.

But she’d cooked him some dinner and they lingered while Eva fed Annie.