Cultureshock

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Video transcript

The railways were nationalised in those days and it worked well. It was the main line from London to Glasgow for passenger travel. It was also used for freight, coal, timber, iron, iron ore and cars. Tate and Lyle had containers full of sugar. The trains were run on steam. It you had washing on the line you could get black marks on sheets and towels and clothes. I often had to wash things again, depending on the wind and the way the smoke was blowing. You could see a man with a shovel feeding the fire with coal to keep the steam engine moving. I used to watch the trains coming over the viaduct. One day a train did break down and it was not long before they got things moving. They must have shunted the engine that broke down away and replaced it with one that was up to the job.

One day we got news that the Queen was visiting Glasgow in a few days. So on the day the she was due to come we waited out to see the royal train, myself, all the neighbours and our children. We saw the royal train and waved. The Queen would see us, I’m sure but we could not se her, it went by so fast.

We could see lots of things from where we lived. Horners, there was a sweet factory, they made the most delicious toffee, liquorice and other flavours and also boiled sweets. They were well known for Dainty Dinah toffees. On the front of the factory they had a placard of a pretty blonde girl advertising Dainty Dinah toffee. Not so many TV adverts then. This factory was near the railway station so that I suppose they could load boxes of sweets onto a train and take them to a warehouse where shops could make orders. Some of these sweets went for export. Sad to say the factory closed down.

There was also a place by the railway line that did remoulds on car tyres. One night there was a fire, we watched the inferno from our back bedroom of our house. The place was so flammable that anyone dropping a cigarette would have started a fire. It was still smouldering the next day but by then there was nothing left.

We could also see from our house the railway bridge. Any people we invited could be seen from our front door. One of my brothers and his girlfriend came when he was on leave from the Navy. He would bring his Everly Brothers records and play them at our house. There were lots of good singers then, Beatles, Elvis, Stones, Dusty Springfield. Yes, and I suppose they too may have travelled on the line.

I saw the Queen Mother once, she was going to visit Beamish Museum. She sat with her lady in waiting in the back seat of a very large black car. They both looked as if there were well made up. She waved at us, she must have come by train to Newcastle then after a visit and lunch come by car to Beamish, then back to Newcastle for the train home to London, or perhaps Scotland.

The railways were made private in the 1980s. By then, the steam trains were gone. These days they are a tourist attraction and there are railway lines being replaced and old steam trains being restored by volunteers for that purpose. I may one of these days have a ride in one. There is a tourist train from Settle in Yorkshire to Carlisle. There was a train for Consett to Whitley Bay but that line was closed. The working men’s clubs used to have annual trips to the coast often by train. I remember getting into a carriage of a steam train with my mother and brother and two sisters. We were going to grandmothers at Newbiggin by the Sea. We had a carriage all to ourselves.  A porter came along and made sure all the carriage doors were securely shut, he blew his whistle and off we went.  I went to London with my two granddaughters last year, people were standing some of the way just like the buses. How times have changed.