Autobiography
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 11
I become Associate Director of the BBC Songs of Praise for a John Wesley Anniversary Programme and tell the Germans how to run their trains on time!
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- 482 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 10 / 3
Reorganisations, train accidents (and safety management) and reliability - all issues I faced and had to manage in this role...
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- 1674 reads
Summer Pudding
"No...this isn’t a poem, it’s just a three-day old loaf..."
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- 796 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 10 / 2
Steam Specials and Royal Trains - as Officer in charge of both I had some enjoyable and sometimes hair-raising experiences...
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- 1045 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 10 / 1
Back to running trains again - taking charge of operations on the West Coast Main Line (pre Virgin). A few interesting tests we instituted...
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- 573 reads
Business
The hotness of the peppers. The business of love.
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- 774 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 9 / 2
I move to the BR Headquarters and get involved in departmental politics and significant trade union negotiations that hit the headlines in the 1980s.
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- 790 reads
The Artists' Muse
Choosing to become sedentary laying alone my mind wanders...
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'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 9 / 1
I become Head of the dreaded department whose role was to increase produuctivity, but first I was sent on a high level 3 month management course involving a week on Swiss railways.
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- 515 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 8
In 1967 I became in charge of train planning in South Wales, which mainly meant coping with the demands of very active coal and steel industries. How things have changed...
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- 466 reads
The Spawn of the Swinging Sixties Chapter One Born on the Goldhawk Road
...a suburban dreamer if ever there was one...
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- 431 reads
Precious Time
Often I staggered as if drunk. I was working too hard with little rest and lost conciousness twice of exhaustion. I awoke with a fright terribly startled every morning.
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Afters for Others
Towel dry cuddles, from mums and dads.
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'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 7 / 2
More anecdotes, derailments,new digs on the coast and chapels in the valleys.
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- 817 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 7 / 1
A new job,and the railway teaches me to drive, but still the derailments continue as I suffer my 'jonah' role...
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We have to keep the country going third draft
Steyning is twee.
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A house is nothing whilst a home is everything.
A home is full of books,pictures,clutter that we have accumulated over the years.
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'The Toss of a Coin,, Chapter 6 / 2
More tales of a hectic nine months as Stationmaster, Aberbeeg, the last Stationmaster before Area Management abolishes the post of Stationmaster...
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- 801 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 6 / 1
'The coin is tossed' and I become stationmaster Aberbeeg, an operating post with 70 staff in the Western Valley above Newport. And this influenced the rest of my career...
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- 940 reads
We have to keep the country going second draft
The reality of my on-going situation hit me hard earlier today.
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- 321 reads
The misty mirrors of childhood
“The land of Song within thee lies, Watered by living springs; “Holy thoughts, like stars, arise, Its clouds are angels' wings.”
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I Almost Died By My Own Hand
I almost died by my own hand. By the bottle of shame and fear I held tightly, Clutched between shaky fingers, As I knotted a rope of words unsaid, Looped it ‘round my bare neck,
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- 261 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 5
'Sitting next to Nellie' in the London Offices and a final fling to practise my management skills in Devon and Dorset before getting my first permanentjob as a Stationmaster.
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- 617 reads
That Morning
In this dream I never told, I ran away.
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'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 4
Becoming a lodger in Swansea, a stationmaster in Pontardawe, designing car space allocation for the new roll-on/roll-off ferry to Ireland and Welsh Vally wanderings
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- 849 reads
My Charlie Drake
As the train pulled up at Newton Abbott station I knew that by the end of the week my life would be in some way different, and that no matter what happened, something inside of me would never be the s
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- 397 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 3 / 2
Three weeks with a footplate pass to learn the duties of a steam locomotive driver (and fireman!). A schoolboy's dream and I got paid for it!
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- 816 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 3 / 1
My first year as a Traffic Apprentice (Managemment Trainee) learning the ropes in Stations and Depots in the London Division
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- 759 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 2 / 2
Now my first summer college vacation at Old Oak depot and joining the railway after graduation as a clerk in 1960
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- 644 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 2 / 1
Gap year at a steam locomotive depot - being a bit of a train 'buff' helps if you want to enjoy this chapter!
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- 670 reads
West of the Fields Long Gone
“It's not that you're empty...but that there is an omnipresent sadness about you, a fatality...”
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- 502 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 1 / 2
The second half of the first chapter, entitled 'Why did I become a railwayman?' covering early days at school and London University and their (ir)relevance...
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- 794 reads
'The Toss of a Coin', Chapter 1/1
The first chapter of my railway autobiography - from rail enthusiast to station master to Head of Safety on British Rail to being founder of the 'Railway Children' charity.
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- 865 reads
Baby Makes Three ( Part Three )
I was taken down to the general ward in the middle of the night. Last part of my Dear Diary memory.
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Baby Makes Three ( Part Two )
It was late afternoon before the contractions became stronger... My Dear Diary moment continues...
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Baby Makes Three ( Part One )
A Dear Diary memory of giving birth in Three parts.
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- 3433 reads
Ticking the Boxes
The do's and don'ts for blind dating
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Sitting
How many times together have we talked? I'm just sitting here quietly watching like a sloth Can't break the silence when one is gone Even worse, when it's just us two
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My Future Positively Glittered
…but oh…the indescribable bliss of having passed that audition…
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- 457 reads
A dweller on the threshold
After breakfast the doors were opened and it was as one man stumble stumble trip all fall down. All over the grounds littered like corpses patients were lying around sleeping on the lawns.
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The Triumph of Decadence
It was my first voyage as an Ordinary Deckhand with the RNR, and I was just seventeen years old.
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mother
My mother lived a childhood she could've done without then she passed it on to me unconsciously the depths and the bends and the anxiety.
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This Glass Is Half Empty
I won't run away It's not like yesterday I'm not twenty one But this is still going on It's still going wrong Heart aches and breaks she's had plenty With her head hanging down
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Hooked
Haiku written 15th May 2013 while enjoying coffee time at Burns Beach Cafe as the 'resident poet'.
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Growing up
Every now and then the wind brings a sign It usually sends a signal telling me to step out of line I don't always listen but I'll admit its hard to resist
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Yebo!
The Zulu salutation is “Yebo” (or YeeEbo!) Yes! And the greeting is returned by, how are you? “Ninjani!” Customs and traditions in South-Africa
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Memories Of The Blitz ( The Nightclub) Part two.
The weirdest and coolest people on the planet.
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Memories Of The Blitz. ( The nightclub ). Part One.
Part One of a memory from 1979 about the famous Blitz Clun in London.
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Whispers of Love
This was a runner-up in the 1998 World Mental Health Day poetry competition, held in York. I travelled down from Aberdeen to read it in person.
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- 840 reads
Lardycake
I haven't left the house since 2001 and haven't moved from my bed for years.
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I submit to ABC
two hours of clawing in the grime, the wonder here on my own to share with the world a secret no more
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- 606 reads
you came to me under a weeping willow
your eyes lost inside themselves spinning on their splintered axes hunting like they were blind
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- 1072 reads
Letters to a Daughter and Sons
Mom said I was a wandering child and lucky to have survived my early years.
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I dreamed a dream, cursed are my thoughts.
It wasn’t me he thought: He spoke, Lying; defeat: A prison he didn’t wish to share. Barred from any dignity or resurrection; Barren was his night, a heart no longer able to bear.
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- 420 reads
Australia Here We Come. ( Part 7)
Life on a 45,000 ton troopship is not for the faint hearted.
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- 561 reads
JC
Jesus Christ, There’s nothing up there but the sensation of falling and there’s nothing down here but a sick urge to rise. I want to float to the top Be the cream of the crop,
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- 2368 reads
The People's Language
This still needs some work on it, but I thought I'd whack it on here anyway!
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- 429 reads
All night Skype.
A ghost rises into the sky It's ancient silver palate is engrained with the impression of the vastness of the sky, a velvet blanket to cover us both with the grace of 3 am silence.
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Searching; fifty shades of sight
Chapter 3
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- 1051 reads