LMS, British Rail and Finglas.

LMS logo

When I was a little boy, around the same time as God was a little boy, my dad worked for the Railways. He worked for LMS which was the London, Midland & Scottish Railway Company which I thought, till today, meant the London, Midland and Southern but you can see how a life time of thinking one thing can disappear in a moment.

He didn't have anything to do with the trains as he worked at the goods yard at Lawley Street, Birmingham, and delivered parcels to all and sundry using a horse and cart; the horse's name was Bob and I know for a fact that my dad loved that horse in a way that grown men love animals and not in any modern thinking perverted Equus type of way.

My dad stayed at that job for most of his working life, even though he'd been a qualified barber in Dublin where he had a little shop. Business was so bad there that he used to sit my mother in the chair pretending she was a customer when anybody walked passed.

When he retired from the railways he was the boss of that yard and as to Bob? Dog meat or glue, I suppose, but he never forgot him.

My first job was in an Army & Navy Store in the warehouse and various goods were delivered via the back entrance to the Goods Inward where I would take them from the drivers of railway vans. I would say – my dad works there, and they would say – he's my boss!!

For some reason, and I can't remember what, my dad had to visit the place where I worked one day, on business and he came via the back entrance – it's my dad, I told my supervisor, who kind of trembled into the corner as he might have thought I had told my dad about him trying to reach for my back entrance when I was up some steps putting army boots and the like on to the shelves. I didn't tell my dad because he would have killed him and in any case, at the age of 15, I was quite able for the old 'perv' with a few kicks that he always managed to dodge. 

Yes it was always a world full of perverts and pranksters who blacked young kids' balls with polish 'just for fun' amongst other things.

In January 1948 LMS was nationalised and turned in to a part of British Railways but it didn't make any difference to us as we could still travel free on all railways, including those in Ireland, three times a year – so that's what we did. We went three times a year to Dublin on the ship and train – we could have gone to the Continent but went to Dublin and in the summer time we were left there with our aunt & uncle in Finglas.

When we went back to school in September we would have Dublin accents which lasted for a few weeks – it still happens today in Roman Catholic Schools in Britain, I am told.

One day my father brought home a pudding spoon for me; it was a spoon from the Railways and it was made by Mappin & Webb, a famous silversmith (even today). The spoon was from the railway canteen but it didn't have 'LMS' on it – it had GWR which was another of the private companies who were nationalised at the same time as LMS. 

GWR were known as 'God's Wonderful Railways' but officially as Great Western Railways and I believe they ran the famous Flying Scotsman which was the most famous train of all.

Sometimes, when our bikes had punctures, our dad would mend them and as he didn't have any tyre levers he would use pudding spoons – or dessert spoons as some seem to say – and one day a few of those spoons bent with the pressure. So in he came and took my spoon from the drawer. As soon as I saw this I screamed as I didn't want my spoon broken but the spoon was very strong and stood up to it.

For some reason that spoon came with me when I got married so I used it for my breakfast up to the time I went to live in America. One day, before my wife came across, the mail man came with a packet for me and it was my spoon; my wife had sent it.

I still use it now but only for breakfast such as porridge or corn flakes etc – never for pudding for some reason.

So I suppose the spoon will stay with me for the rest of my life; it has never been treasured or revered by me it just kind of stayed – here is a picture of it.

As far as I was concerned British Railways seemed to work okay; if you wanted to get a train to anywhere you would just show up at the station and buy a ticket. If you missed that train you would get the next one and so on.

It was very useful when I was working in London and living in Northampton; I would never know what time I finished work and sometimes would stay for a few drinks.

But since we came back from America things have changed – and not for the better. Now you have to nominate the train you wish to travel on and sometimes even book your seat. If you are caught on the wrong train your ticket is no good and you have to pay for another.

If you book a ticket at the last minute you have to pay an arm and a leg – it's okay if you book well in advance but . . . . there are so many railway companies these days; one company owns the track and leases the lines out to the others; private catering companies supply the food and drinks and when this arrangement first came into force the company that owned the track went bankrupt.

The present railway companies have to apply for the franchises to run their trains every so often and recently Virgin Trains lost their franchise to run their trains on a particular line – and then Richard Branson whinged and wept and moaned about the company that won the franchise and how incompetent they were and how they had submitted a dodgy tender, then lo and behold Virgin were re-awarded the franchise.

But isn't it about time we went back to British Railways? Why did people stand for it and why are we standing for what is happening to the National Health Service here now? And everything else – but there we are and . . . . here we are!

By the way, last week I went to the movies to see The Master; good enough movie and a superb performance from Joaquin Phoenix. I thought I was going to see it at The Curzon Cinema in Soho but when I got there they told me it was showing at The Curzon Cinema in Mayfair; so I went to Mayfair and waited for my companion.

I was chatting to the man on the door and he said that a lot of people went to the Soho theatre by mistake sometimes and sometimes it was the other way around. He had a kind of Irish accent so I asked him where he was from – Dublin, he said, Finglas.

Finglas, the place we would go to as children all those summers ago. 'I know Finglas' I said, 'we went there for the summers when we were kids.' 'What about that?' he said. 'Mellowes Road' I said, 'number 11.' 'Ha ha', he said, 'I lived at number 15.' 

I think his name was Wally MacDonald!