Father's Lunch

Hilary Lewis remembers: Everyone has memories of the Mumbles train, but my many special ones are of a much more personal nature, as I was the eldest daughter of Frank Dunkin, the Railway’s longest serving driver. He was a popular man whose beaming smile greeted all, who boarded the train.

It was my enjoyable job to go down Cornwall Place and along the back of the bowling-green to give ‘Dada’ his dinner, which he would eat on board the steam train at Oystermouth Station. It was always a cooked, gravy dinner, which I would carry in a basket, lined with newspaper.

My younger sister, Gwen, would then sometimes accompany him for a ride to the Pier and I, being older, would have to walk up Dunns Lane to attend afternoon school.

Even now, I can still hear the ‘toot’ of the steam train and smell the acetylene of its lamps.