The Enginemen, Chapter 16

Chapter 16: November 1962

The first he knew was when he awoke to find Eva shaking him by his shoulder. “Dad, Dad, wake up. The phone’s ringing for you. It sounds urgent. Dad, wake up! It’s me, Eva. It’s the phone!
For you! It’s urgent! Dad!”

He opened an eye and saw his daughter standing over him, looking anxious.

“Dad, are you awake? I think it’s the office for you.”

He grumbled, “Don’t they know I’ve been on all night? What time is it?”

“Just past twelve o’ clock. I was just feeding Annie and Shirley answered the phone and told me to wake you up because it’s urgent.”

He sat up in bed and squinted at the alarm clock beside the double bed set for four o’clock. He’d been on the night sleeper up from Swansea and had only got to bed at nine o’clock just as Shirley was arriving. He stumbled out of bed, pulled on his dressing gown and shouted to Eva, who was already going down the stairs, “Tell whoever it is to hang on a moment. I’m just going to slosh some water round my face, otherwise I’ll not take anything in.”

He put the receiver up to his unkempt hair straggling over one ear and grunted, “Yes, George Munday here. Who is it?”

When he heard the voice at the other end of the line he subconsciously smoothed his hair down and straightened. He listened intently, nodding once or twice, interspersed with the occasional, “Yes, sir. I understand, yes.” He listened some more and then asked, “Do you want me to come in straight away?”

He listened some more and then grunted and put the phone down. Shirley was standing there looking concerned.

“Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee?”

“Yes, please, Shirley. I could do with coffee.”

He followed her into the kitchen.

“What is it?” she asked. “Has there been a train accident?”

“Not exactly,” he replied. “There seems to have been a fatality. One of the firemen has apparently fallen from a train and been killed.”

“How awful! Do you know the man?”

“Yes. He’s a young man with two kids and his wife’s a nerve case. I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“Have you got to go into work?”

“Yes, the depot manager is going to break the news to the widow and he wants me to go with him.”

“Why you?”

“Well, he’s contacted the Welfare Officer and he’ll go round tomorrow, but I know the family and he thinks the news will come better from me. Frankly I don’t think it’ll come better from anyone. I just hope the kids are at school, that’s all.”

Shirley put her hands on George’s shoulder and squeezed.

“You’ll do it well. If anyone can do it, you will. The boss trusts you obviously.”

George stuck a bar of chocolate in his pocket and put his coat on. Shirley came up to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“God bless and good luck. If you want me to stay on later today until you get back, I will. I’ve nothing special to go home to. Don’t worry. Eva, Annie and I will be okay.”

George got into his old Anglia and when he’d parked at the top of the drive to the roundhouses, he made his way straight to the Shedmaster’s office. Nellie interrupted him and handed him a cup of tea as he was about to enter. “It’s a bad do,” she said. “I pity his poor wife and those two bairns.” Trust Nellie to know everything about the family.

“Sit down, George, and finish your tea while I put you in the picture.” George put his cup down and helped himself to a lump of sugar from the silver bowl on the boss’s desk. He stirred vigorously and waited for Philip Doig to continue.

“I got a call from the police just about an hour ago. Apparently Alec Mytton was firing to Peplow on the 9.15 Worcester and somehow managed to fall from the footplate just before Honeybourne. The police found his body on the ballast in the six foot between the lines and have closed the route until they’ve established his position and examined the body to see if it’s consistent with a fall or whether there’s any evidence of foul play.”

“My God, did you say Peplow was the driver? Have we got another case of excessive speeding just after his disciplinary? They’ll crucify us for letting him off so lightly.”

“Don’t talk to me about that, George, I know, I can just see it coming. And what’s more, we hadn’t got a ‘Castle’ to give him this morning, so he took a rough old ‘Hall’. If he went down the bank at excessive speed, all hell will let loose.” Anyway, enough of that for the moment. I guess the police will want to interview Peplow before he books off tonight. First though, we’ve got to go and break the news to Mrs Mytton. I’m sorry to involve you, George, but I didn’t know Mytton and I gather from Nellie that you did.”

So I’ve Nellie to thank for this awkward task, thought George, trust her. Oh well, it was probably best. If he’d been in her shoes, he’d have done the same.

“Tell me what you know about the family while I’m getting my coat on.”

“Mytton wasn’t a bad husband. He drank a bit too much, but he’d a lot to put up with. Lucy Mytton‘s neurotic. He had some time off last year when she was suffering from depression. I think she was actually treated in hospital for it. Mytton got unpaid compassionate leave for a couple of months to look after the children. We gave him a helping hand from union funds to enable him to get by until he was earning again. Then her mother came down from Scotland – her parents had retired somewhere up in the Highlands and the father had died, so her mother stayed with her until she had recovered sufficiently to go back north.”

“Is the mother available to come down and help now?”

“I don’t know, but I hope so. I can’t see how she’ll cope otherwise.”

They had got into Doig’s Wolseley by now and gone up through Willesden towards Stonebridge Park. George knew the way as he’d visited the house to give Alec Mytton the union cash, so he guided Doig into the road of terraced houses all leading straight onto the pavement with no front gardens. They sat for a while in the car outside the house.

“Are you going to tell her or shall I?” George thought he knew the likely answer.

“I’ll just introduce myself, then I think it best to hand over to you. She knows you. You helped them before, she’ll trust you.”

“Thanks!” he answered a little sarcastically. Then he added, “I suppose that’s best.”

They knocked at the bright painted front door and waited a long time. They knocked a second time. Perhaps she was out. It was nearly two o’clock, perhaps she’d gone shopping. They were about to give up when they heard movements and saw the curtains part upstairs and a face peer out at them. She’d presumably gone for a nap after lunch. She opened the door to them. She had no make-up on and clearly had not even brushed her mousy coloured hair.

“Mrs Mytton? I’m Philip Doig, the Shedmaster at Old Oak Common and I think you know George Munday, the ASLEF Union Organiser. Can we come in? I think we need to talk.”

“What’s Alec gone and done?” She was immediately defensive.

“Let’s get in, love, and sit down. I’m afraid we’ve got bad news for you.” George steered Lucy Mytton into her living room and led her to an armchair in front of the smouldering fire. The fire was in danger of going out, she’d clearly not tended it for an hour or so. George carefully placed a few judicious lumps of coal on the fire and stirred it with the poker.

Mrs Mytton sat there lost in the armchair for she was slight, even thin, her face pinched and white, her eyes staring with foreboding. She had no stockings on and scuffed carpet slippers on her feet.

George hesitated, then because the silence seemed worse than the certainty of the awful news, he told her.

“I’m afraid Alec has met with an accident at work. He’s had a bad fall.”

The woman reacted with frightened eyes, she mouthed, “Will he be alright?”

George waited for a moment until she’d taken that in, then said softly, “I’m afraid not, my dear. He fell badly from his engine while they were travelling at speed. There’s little anyone could have done.”

Mrs Mytton gaped at him then howled. The piercing sound echoed through the little house. She gasped and coughed, then uttered, “You mean, he’s dead? He’s not coming back to me?”

“I’m afraid so, my dear. I really am dreadfully sorry. I’d give anything at this moment to be able to give you some hope, but I’m afraid the truth is that he was killed instantly as he hit the ground for his train was travelling fast when the accident happened.”

Lucy Mytton now crumpled, hugging herself, so that she looked like a small child completely engulfed in the armchair. She was emitting a low moaning sound, and began to rock herself to and fro. Philip Doig and George looked at each other, nonplussed at what to do. George said to his boss, “I think perhaps a cup of tea all round wouldn’t hurt. Do you think you could rustle one up while I see if I can comfort her in any way?” The Shedmaster disappeared into the kitchen and George could hear him trying cupboard doors and opening drawers looking for the necessary ingredients and implements. George looked at Lucy again. She had ceased her agitated movement and was now letting the tears flow. He went and sat on the arm of the chair beside her and put an arm round her shoulders and left it there. He could feel her body shuddering as she sobbed and did not try to stop her. It was better, he thought, to let the tears flow. As he waited he looked at the photo of her two children on the mantelpiece, he looked at his watch. In an hour or so’s time, nine year old Jeff and seven year old Heather would be home. He wondered if their mother normally fetched them from school or whether they walked home on their own?

Lucy Mytton’s attention must have been drawn to her children at the same time, for she suddenly burst into a fresh wailing, crying out, “What shall I tell my children? How can I tell them? Can you tell them?”

“Mrs Mytton,” George replied, “I’m afraid that’s something only you can do. They’ll need you above all at this time. Have you a friend or relative who lives nearby and can support you this afternoon?”

She stopped crying for a moment, blew her nose and shook her head. “I’ll ask my mother to come down and help me, but she’s in Scotland.”

“Do you want to ring her now?”

“Yes, er…no, not yet. Not until I can think a bit clearer.”

“Would you like me to ring her for you?”

“Would you?” At that moment Philip Doig entered the room with a tray holding three cups of tea. He placed them on the table and Mrs Mytton got up and fetched a cup, saying to George, “You’ll find her number in the notebook by the phone. Her name is Edith Craig.” Her accustomed hospitality and duty to visitors then took over and she insisted on finding some biscuits in the larder and offering them to both the men. Meanwhile George phoned Mrs Craig, broke the news of her son-in-law’s death and extracted a promise that she’d come south the very next day to look after Lucy and the children at least until the funeral was over. George asked Lucy Mytton if she belonged to any church and whether he could ask a priest to call on her to help with the arrangements she’d now need to make.”

“No, I don’t belong anywhere. My husband didn’t believe in what he called superstition and wouldn’t let me, or the children go anywhere near a church.”

“Would you like me to ask my Minister to call on you?”

Doig interrupted, “The railway’s Welfare Officer will come round to see you tomorrow morning and will help you with all the practical and financial arrangements, you needn’t worry on that score.”

“Thanks, both of you. I think it might help, Mr Munday, my mother goes to a chapel and she’s always been pressing me to join a church here, but Alec always put his foot down at that.”

“If that’s what you’d like, I’ll ask my own Minister to contact a church near you and get someone to call. But what about the immediate next hour or two? Do you need someone to fetch the children from school? Is there a neighbour who has children at the same school who can bring them home?”

“They walk home together, thank you. But what do I tell them?”

“They’ll see you’re upset. They will want to know why and you’ve got to tell them the truth sooner or later. Unless you want to put it off until your mother gets here?”

Lucy Mytton was thinking this one through when there was a sudden crashing at the back door and the two children barged into the room, recoiling when they saw the strangers present.

“Why are you home so early?”

“The heating system broke down and it was getting so cold, so the Headmaster said anyone whose parents were at home could go. Who are these men, Mum? Why are they here?”

“They’ve come to tell us bad news, Jeff. Daddy’s had an accident on the railway.”

“Has he had a train crash?” said Jeff, his eyes lighting up.

“Is he alright?” whispered Heather simultaneously.

“These are Daddy’s bosses from the railway,” croaked Lucy, the tears beginning to flow again.

“We’ll go and leave you with your children,” said Philip Doig quickly. We mustn’t intrude on you any more. I’ll be in touch tomorrow to see if there’s any more I can do.”

“Please stay for a moment, I don’t think I can cope yet on my own,” sobbed Lucy Mytton as she put her arm around Heather’s slender waist and pulled her against her own body. The girl, sensing something serious had gone wrong, began to cry and Jeff looked alarmed.

“You go, guvnor, I’ll stay to help Mrs Mytton as long as she needs me. It’s a pity I haven’t my Florrie here, she’d be much better at this than me.”

Philip Doig made his exit and then Lucy Mytton took the children into the main living room and broke the news to them while George finished his tea in the kitchen. The house was suddenly filled with three voices howling their distress in unison, and George felt his own eyes beginning to water, upset at witnessing such collective grief. He was sure that Alec Mytton had neither been a good husband or perfect father, but he was their father – the only one they knew and that stability had suddenly been removed from their lives. They were old enough to know and feel their loss and not yet mature enough to cope with it, he thought, as if most adults were able to deal with such sudden shock.

He poured some orange squash into a couple of glasses and took them into the children. Jeff was sitting at the table staring out of the window, his school books scattered in front of him. George put a glass in front of him and he boy picked it up and began absentmindedly to drink from it. Heather was snuggled in the armchair with her mother, both weeping silently. George gave Heather’s drink to Mrs Mytton to hold.

“Can I help you in any way? Do you need any shopping or food for the children? Are you up to getting them tea when they want something?”

“You can leave us now,” she said, “we’ll manage somehow between us. The children will help me. They’re being very brave. They’re good children,“ she added as an afterthought.

George left and felt momentary relief. Then he thought, ‘It’s back to the depot and time to face James Peplow. What would come of that?’