Nick Barnfield

This page is of Nick Barnfield's memories of Trainspotting. His account of Swindon Works can be found here.

Alright, OK, Hands up!

I was an anorak as were my two brothers and numerous other small boys from Moredon and Swindon in general.

Saturday and holidays we would wander off to Swindon station for our day of collecting loco numbers, although there would always be a knot of boys gathered up at the ends of the platforms of Swindon Junction we never particularly went together, we just used the station as a meeting point.

We would of have made a normal sight back in those days but how different we looked from boys aged six, seven, ten or twelve in today’s modern world. In fact I doubt the child of today would even dream of populating the ends of railway platforms.

Although trainspotters are nicknamed “anoraks” in the fifties or sixties an anorak would not have been part of a trainspotters attire. Summer time would have seen us with short sleeved shirts and a pullover or “tank top,” and in my case knitted by my mother and more than likely from something she had unpicked the wool from. A pair of shorts would have to cover the other bits, we weren’t old enough yet to wear long trousers. These shorts would have been held up by a snake belt, the height of a boys accessories. Socks meant to be pulled up tidily to your knees would lie crumpled and coarsely around your ankles just touching the tops of ankle boots neatly cobbled by my father with Blakeys Segs, lord how we used to scuff them along to make sparks!

Winter would have seen us dressed virtually the same except we would have the luxury of a mac probably in any colour you choose as long as it is black. Some would perhaps wear a school boys cap, although then as now I am not given to adorning my head, with anything at all, I suffer badly from ‘at ‘air! Do we detect a bit of vanity creeping in there..

If anyone had chosen to wear a jacket you may depend the top pocket would be full of pens with surely a blob of ink at the bottom of the pocket where at least one pen had deposited its inky contents. As well as all these writing tools each little trainspotter would have a well thumbed and tatty notebook. In here would be jotted those precious locomotive numbers.

Most would have sandwiches in lunch boxes, not boxes that offered a little fart when you lifted the corner of the lid, but a contemporary affair, light aluminium in cream with a green lid, lovingly filled with sandwiches made by a mother probably pleased for a couple of hours peace and quiet! The highlight was to swap sandwiches, someone else’s cheese sandwich always tasted better than yours.

This though is not a gathering of vanity, this is an assemblage of experts. How we had this knowledge is a mystery but we had it in spades, we knew a particular locomotive would not be heading the “Bristolian” it had been replaced by another one for some reason or another. Thornbury Castle or some other loco has been “shopped,” inside vernacular for gone into the works for repair.

Then of course the highlight came with the driver leaning out of the cab you would hopefully ask if you could come up for a look. Most drivers agreed, very few were miseries and refused. I have been on the cabs of locos and worked on aircraft, they both have distinctive smells that stay today with me.

So here we are on the loco we have "cabbed," an array of polished copper piping, brass handles and gauges that meant little to a small wannabe driver. But the excitement of it all, the smell of the heat from the Firebox and the oil that came from the cotton waste that every driver used, for wiping and cleaning. I dread to think what they cleaned! If you go to the Railway Museum in York there is a cast iron sign that informs all not to use cotton waste in these toilets!

I was to find out later during my tenure as an apprentice coppersmith this sign was in all the toilets in Swindon at least.

If we were on the downside, that was on the Paddington to Bristol side the sight of a Britannia class loco would get us all excited.

The train would come to a sedate halt and passengers would join or leave the train. The guard would blow his whistle and wave his green flag.

A blast of the whistle from the loco, a hiss of steam and the chuff of exhaust and it's off!

Now a good driver will lift the train off smoothly, a heavy handed driver will open the regulator a little hard and the loco slips. The wheels have no grip on the rail and therefore spin causing a great shower of sparks! What fun that was for a young lad. Brittanias were prone to slipping and especially whenever they went round the back of the signal box.

This was then a rough picture of a young lad brought up in a railway town, boys when asked what they would do when leaving school answered without hesitation, “An engine driver!” Of my peers only one made it onto the tracks and in reality he had joined at a time when the romance of steam was waning, whether he remained to savour the anonymity of diesel I know not, I had by now left Swindon.

Whilst all this maybe good fun a chance conversation with my brother Ray reminded me of a more exciting side for us at least of this childhood hobby.

Like a lot of Swindon fathers they were incarcerated in the Railway Works or “Inside” as it was known locally but a benefit of this meant that rail-travel was cheap. Workers were allotted three free passes and unlimited “Priv Tickets.” This Privilege Ticket meant a rail fair was offered at a third of the price. This was probably the basis for many excursions. Excursions that today a boy of between nine and twelve years of age just would not be allowed to go on with no-one but his brother, and he is two years younger than I.

To “bunk” the sheds in Swindon was an exciting prospect, but what if we bunked the sheds at Didcot.” So we did! Not to difficult, just one train and we were away.

This was only a start, The world now as Arthur Daley said was “Our Lobster.” There was no stopping us, Bletchely, Milton Keynes, Basingstoke and even London and it’s various mainline stations.

We did all of these trips with no problems at all, although I do remember whist we were in Basingstoke someone bought a copy of the Reveille Magazine. This was a magazine that featured to quote “pictures of tastefully dressed ladies.” A member of the station staff seeing us duly confiscated it with a “Tut Tut Boys,” I can’t help think it was more for his perusal rather that our moral well being!

One annoying fact though remains, whilst we did these trips I cannot recall the names of the kids that went with us, if anyone does remember it would be nice to know, so just add a tag and an expansion of the memory.