(Above) One of the rail posters produced during the war. Pic courtesy NRM Pictorial Collection
An appeal for wartime memories launched by the National Railway Museum in the run up to last year’s Remembrance Day has resulted in a flood of responses.
Stories have been arriving from all over the country, particularly from the railway towns of Doncaster and York, where the museum is based.
The Museum plans to capture the most interesting tales for posterity as part of the vast collection of railway history available to the public through Search Engine, its multi-million pound archive and research centre, where people can learn about their family’s railway past.
The project was inspired by Gordon Smith, a 75-year-old part-time worker at the NRM who was formerly employed as a boilersmith. Gordon’s wartime recollections led archivists to consider the wealth of uncollected stories waiting to be tapped.
“We are receiving some really fascinating first-hand stories about the reality of life on the railways during wartime,” reveals Tim Procter, archivist at the NRM. “As the Second World War slips into history, it’s vitally important that we preserve people’s memories of a Britain caught in the grip of conflict, creating yet another treasure for the public to discover during a visit to Search Engine.”
Bomb damage at St Pancras station during the war. Pic courtesy NRM Pictorial Collection
One of the respondents, Dennis Hartley from Doncaster, was called up for National Service in the army in August 1943. Because he was a railway clerk, he was posted to a unit of the Corps of Royal Engineers called Movement Control following his primary training in Glasgow Dennis.
“I was sent to the Royal Docks, which appear on the map at the beginning of ‘EastEnders,’” says Dennis, who recalls the first V1 flying bomb strike on London.
“There were reports in the newspapers about this pilotless plane. At that time nobody knew what it was, but two or three nights later the air raid sirens sounded and we came out of the Nissen huts to watch the searchlights and the anti-aircraft guns firing."
“We had done this before when there had been air raids by conventional bombers. On this occasion we could see these ‘planes’ coming down in flames and we cheered because we thought they had been shot down."
"It was, in fact, the first large wave of V1s, which were jet-propelled and sounded like two stroke motorbikes. After that we were ordered to sleep in shelters underneath the platforms for railway wagons alongside the transit sheds.”
Alan Holmes, of Ferryhill, Co Durham served on the footplate for the L.N.E.R. during the war years at the Bank Top shed at Darlington.
“Part of my service was spent in the running foreman’s office before passing out as fireman,” says Alan. “I can recall how a wrong signal led to the derailment and subsequent rail crash that occurred at Browney, south of Durham City. I also remember coming under attack from a Heinkel III and the night we faced American friendly fire.”
Air raid damage at St Pancras Hotel. Pic courtesy NRM Pictorial Collection
Staff at the Museum are particularly delighted with the number of stories coming through involving women, demonstrating how wives, daughters, sisters and mothers stepped out of their traditional roles to keep the war effort literally on track in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
When Joan Davies, now 90, applied to her local Labour Exchange in 1942 she was directed to a paint shop in the Engineering Department at a nearby railway station at Mangotsfield, Bristol.
“I went for a medical by the railway doctor, and apparently only just passed. My weight at that time was only eight stones and they said I didn’t look strong enough for the work which was needed of me, but if I was willing to have a go they would give me a try,” says Joan.
Taken on as a painter/decorator and glazier, Joan’s work scraping, painting and replacing windows and broken glass often saw her walking miles along the track laden with planks and ladders, or loading her equipment onto a parcels wagon and pulling it along roads by hand.
She recalls working in railway property festooned with cobwebs, with spiders “big enough to go to work,” being whistled at all day by servicemen passing through her station on troop trains as she perched on a ladder with a bucket of bitumen and replacing shattered glass high up in the roof at Green Park Station.
Since Bristol saw the fifth heaviest bombing of any English city during the Second World War, Joan was also witness to some upsetting scenes. “I remember an ambulance train in the sidings at Gloucester Station,” she says.
“It was bringing wounded boys back to hospitals near to their homes, so that their relatives could visit them while they recovered. Some of their injuries were so dreadful, the memory of it makes me want to cry.”
On another occasion, Joan ran into an Italian prisoner of war while working on a cabin at St Philips Engine Sheds. “He could speak a little English so we got talking," she says. "He said his name was Giovanni, and that sailors had picked him up after his boat had been torpedoed."
"He still had some pictures of his family, but on seeing them I felt like crying. A photograph of his wife had got wet and stuck to a photograph of his children. He had tried to separate them, but you couldn't tell who was who. I said I could just to please him.”
Joan also has fond and comical recollections of free trips to the seaside and of being chatted up by American servicemen. On one occasion, an exploding tin can resulted in Joan and her colleagues being showered with Baked Beans. On another a roughly shunted train in the sidings at Stonehouse caused its cargo of molasses barrels to break, with spectacular results.
“We could hear this loud noise all morning and couldn't understand what it was, or where it was coming from, but at lunchtime we were told by a ganger to go and take a look. What we saw I shall never forget,” she recalls.
“The molasses had run over the whole truck, wheels and all, and it looked as though it was alive. It was absolutely covered in wasps, millions of them, but by three o’clock in the afternoon that wagon was as clean as a new pin, no wasps and not a speck of treacle.”
The NRM’s Catherine Farrell, who has been collating and archiving the stories received by the museum, says she’s been impressed with the response, but stresses that further memories will always be welcome, however they’re received.
“Because of the generation we’re dealing with, most of the responses have been by letter,” she says. “Some of them are first hand, some have been passed on by sons and daughters or other family members. People of that generation seem to be very keen to talk about their experiences, and to get their voice on the record to pass on to future generations.”
As far as the NRM Search Engine is concerned, that record will use a number of formats. “We have a filming day coming up, during which we’ll be interviewing participants. I think it’s important we have a visual record - an oral history,” says Catherine.
“We’ll also be compiling letters into a booklet that can be accessed by anyone researching railway history. It’s going to be an ongoing project until at least February.”
Railway Remembrance Appeal, Press Office, National Railway Museum, Leeman Road, York YO26 4XJ. Email pressoffice@nrm.org.uk
