Walter Dendy's Gloucestershire Railway Memories

Walter Dendy was the London Midland Region Goods Agent at Cheltenham High Street* for a couple of years in the period  1949 to 1951. According to John Blyth, Walter did a large commercial deal leasing the disused MSWJR loco shed to a caravan maker in 1949 (Cheltenham Caravans and one or two other firms were very active in caravan manufacture in the town in those post-war years). It is quite possible that Walter's deal helped the loco shed to survive until the present day; over 65 years after that deal it is still in commercial use, by a carpet firm. One suspects it would have been razed to the ground a long time ago if it had been allowed to decay further.

Above: Cheltenham High Street loco shed as it looked when Walter Dendy became Goods Agent .The three road shed was built for the MSWJR in 1910 and replaced a single road structure. By the Grouping, the MSWJR had become part of the GWR and at the end of 1935, the shed closed and the loco allocation was transferred to Cheltenham Malvern Road. One of the tracks outside the shed was reserved for the MR/LMS loco which shunted the MR/LMS sidings at High Street. This view shows one of Cheltenham Gas Co's gasholders in the background. Below: High Street Goods Shed. The Midland Railway goods shed seen from a passing train in 1968,with High Street Signal Box on the left. On the right can be glimpsed coal wagons and part of the coal concentration depot opened in July 1967 which had a wagon tippler and coal stocking area, also a John Fowler 0-4-0 diesel hydraulic loco for shunting. The depot closed around 1985.The Goods Shed existed until very recent years, though out of use. Being a wooden building it was vulnerable to fire and there was a somewhat mysterious blaze which destroyed it completely.  Photo M A King.

Walter recalled: 'There was a presentation in 1949 of safe driving awards for the yard's motor drivers and carters who distributed goods from the railway to consignees. The local newspaper took photos of the ceremony which was attended by various 'bigwigs' from LMR Bristol goods department.A safe driving certificate and a long service award were presented to the oldest of the carters, who was 'quite a character'. He had been a carter for the Midland Railway at Cheltenham before the 1914/18 War, and then had been a cavalryman, so he could swear like a trooper. We used to get complaints from old ladies in Cheltenham about the filthy language he used to his horse, but to him these were merely terms of endearment, he was absolutely devoted to his horse. He was blind in one eye and it was said that at one time he had a horse which was blind in the other eye, so they used to lead each other round the town. He retired in 1950 when the remaining horses were replaced by motor vehicles and we all had a good laugh (with him) over his record sheet. He had been reprimanded in 1910 or 1912 for leaving his horse and dray parked in the tram lines in the town, while he was cellaring ale at a pub (and no doubt cellaring himself). The language which passed between him and the tram driver after he had been dug out of the pub was recorded verbatim and had to be seen to be believed!

Another character was a tall carter who used to dance a jig with his horse on its hind legs in the goods yard.

All the carters were devoted to their horses and, if one of the horses was sick, its carter would come down to the stables at nights and weekends to look after it. When the horses went by train from Lansdown to the LMS Central Stables at Derby in 1950, most of the carters were in tears.

An 'LMS Container Service' horse drawn wagon at the Gloucestershire Marketing Society premises in Market Street, Cheltenham, not far from the LMS High Street goods yard - though virtually adjacent to the GWR's Cheltenham St James' yard! Photo seen on 'Days Gone By in Cheltenham' Facebook site.

GW loco, 'Mogul' 5303 of 85A Worcester, heads a short passenger working, a Worcester - Gloucester all stations service, past the yard, which was on the right in this picture. The 7.50am Worcester Shrub Hill - Gloucester Eastgate and 10.18am return were regularly headed by a GW loco from 14 February 1949 apparently to avoid lots of light engine running. Prior to this date, the turn had been worked by a Bromsgrove based ex-MR 2F or 3F 0-6-0. Photo Walter Dendy

The LMS had quite a complicated bonus system for motor drivers and this involved me in an interesting experiment. The senior driver was also the men's representative and he drove a rigid vehicle. He complained to me that one of the younger drivers, who had an articulated vehicle, was getting the top bonus week after week and this was unfair. So I persuaded the two drivers to swap vehicles and rounds for a test period. The younger driver still got the top bonus because he worked harder and did not waste so much time in the station or at customers, so when he had finished his normal rounds he was available for any special loads. After a fair test, both drivers agreed to return to their old vehicles and rounds and this proved the bonus system was fairly based. 

High Street 47607. 3F 0-6-0T 47607, the yard shunter, had an interesting war. It served in France as WD10 and then SNCF 030TW043 after capture by the Germans. It was repatriated in 1948, complete with bullet holes in the tanks! This is the loco after overhaul at Derby Works and allocation to 22B Gloucester Barnwood, displaying 'British Railways' in full on its refurbished tanks. The loco crew was probably the one based at High Street until well into the 1950s, as was the yard loco, which only went back to Barnwood for washouts. By the late 1950s though, loco and crew were based at Malvern Road shed, coming over to High Street each day.The engine continued to be provided by Barnwood shed, rather than Horton Road. Photo Walter Dendy

One of the banks in Tewkesbury used to send a box of bullion containing spare cash and notes to its parent branch in Birmingham in the evening from time to time. The box came down to Ashchurch on the branch train and was signed for as a 'Value Parcel' both at Tewkesbury and Ashchurch, where it was loaded onto a northbound train and a signature obtained from the guard. On arrival at Birmingham New Street station the box was offloaded onto a motor tractor for delivery via the subway to the Parcels Office and the tractor driver gave the guard a signature for the box. But on one occasion both the platform tractor and the driver, with the box, vanished into thin air and, so far as I know, were never seen again.

High Street 2936. Great Western locos had probably appeared in High Street yard since the GWR took over the MSWJR in 1922. There was an issue with some GW engines due to the width of their cylinders until the platform coping stones at Lansdown station were moved back in 1940 to allow the passage of most GW types. Here 4-6-0 2936 'Cefntilla Court' of 86A Newport Ebbw Junction shed, still displaying 'GW' on its tender, stands in the yard making up a class 'E' part-fitted freight in early BR days. There were four freights a day from High Street to Severn Tunnel Junction and South Wales. Photo Walter Dendy

The firm of H H Martyn were high-class furniture manufacturers and had a private siding just north of Lansdown station on the up side. I believe they made the new Speaker's Chair for the rebuilt House of Commons after the War among other prestige contracts. They also made and helped to fit furniture in ocean liners. On this occasion they sent by train a vanload of 'Pullman' berths for a liner which was either being built or refitted by Fairfields Shipbuilders on the River Clyde in Glasgow. Martyn's claimed the load was never delivered. Our Scottish Region colleagues found from the number-taker's records at the shipyard that the van had actually been delivered to Fairfields and then a few days later it had been recorded out of the shipyard as an 'Empty'. When the van was eventually found elsewhere, the load was still intact because Fairfields had not unloaded it and it was hastily redirected back to the shipyard and the berths transferred to the liner.

High Street 40523. Another type perhaps not associated with freight work is the ex-Midland 4-4-0 2P, but here is 22B Gloucester Barnwood's 40523 standing in the yard. Again it has pre-BR markings, with 'LMS' on the tender. Photo Walter Dendy

One of our local country gentlemen used to go up to Scotland in August for the grouse shooting and take his dogs with him. But one year  two dogs were sent home on their own by passenger train. Unfortunately they failed to arrive at Cheltenham where a very irate gentleman came to see me. So we set the wires humming (everything was done by railway telegraph in those days) and the dogs were eventually found at London Euston station where they were on hand and unclaimed, but well looked after. Apparently they had eaten each other's destination labels on the way south, so had not been transferred off the West Coast train at Crewe. When they did arrive in Cheltenham, they got a rapturous welcome from their master!

These memories show there is much more to railways than just running trains.' 

Footnote

Walter Dendy, who died in 2006, was Ben Brookbank's cousin.

* The first bomb dropped on Cheltenham in the Second World War, in October 1940, landed in High Street goods yard.

Pictures below were taken by Walter Dendy in 1949 in the Naas - Haresfield - Standish Junction area: