The LNER Encyclopedia

Arrived back at the Cross from Northumberland this afternoon, I looked up to where the old mess room and signing on point was...so many memories came flooding back of the characters, laughs and dramas of those far off days....I feel privileged to have been part of that wonderful time of the early 1970s..

Thanks for keeping the memories alive everyone.

Rumour has it that the ghost of Greggy the loco crews foreman back in the 1970s still haunts the lonely corridors of the west side offices after dark?.

Ha ha..Micky...I remember him well...rushing into the mess room with a clipboard in his hand, and bellowing for drivers...or secondmen for various jobs...I think he was actually a nice person....I believe he emigrated to OZ..?

Regarding Greggy yes he was mentioned on here a number of years ago and it was said then that he had immigrated to Australia maybe when the Passenger Loco closed at the end of 1979.

Also I remember the two other loco foremen at the cross around 1974-75 with Greggy, one fella was maybe about 50-52 and was fairly tall with gingery hair and bushy eyebrows and wore glasses and I remember he didn't appear to talk much to anyone and there was another fella with short dark hair he was maybe about 45-50 and he was quite often seen in the Kings Cross BRSA club around the corner opposite St Pancras station when he was 'off duty' with his wife.

All three of the loco foremen usually wore long blue dust jackets and often had a clip board in there hands.

How is this for todays memory

G'Day Gents

I had a thread that talked about some of my memories of years gone by viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2586&hilit=Memories

Not saying I won't contribute to the new thread, Marx, will have a different memories to mine.

manna

G'Day Gents

So if the crew rooms are closed, where do train crews 'mess' today ??

manna

Thanks guys, Manna, I looked back over your memories some great stories regarding those turns...summer days by the lineside were fabulous..personally, I never got further North than Paterborough...Mickey your description of the foremen is spot on....Mallards plaque certainly is iconic....I was reading back copies of the Aslef journal obituaries...sad to see that Peter Green and Les Henderson have passed on...

G'Day Gents

That's sad, Peter scared a few firemen, but I think he liked his job, wouldn't want to put it in jeopardy.

manna

Hi Manna...
Peter was openly gay at a time when it was still somewhat taboo....I was his seconman on quite a few jobs...He told me that he was given permission not to do lodging turns as he looked after his sick mother........I believe, he had also been in the Navy as a young man?..I remember him as a nice guy....he certainly had lots of stories..and gossip about theatrical folk.....my first job with him was on the Rowntrees shunt..we used to sometimes get free Kit Kats...?...or is my memory playing tricks again...lol.....
Manna, you need to get your memoirs in book form, you are very literate and a great writer...and your accounts of those long ago days need recording...( Edgware permitting)...food for thought ?
Cheers cobber.... hooroo for now...marx.....

manna wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:32 pm That's sad, Peter scared a few firemen, but I think he liked his job, wouldn't want to put it in jeopardy.

With regards to Peter Green who's been mentioned a couple of times on here before in the past he was alright and looking back I think he may have 'played it up a bit' for his own amusement about being 'gay' especially with the young secondmen who had usually been warned by the older drivers about him usually as a wind up to scare them!. Peter would usually ask most of the secondmen that were with him on a diagram if they wanted to go on holiday with him or visit his flat apparently one of the tall tower blocks that still overlooks the former site of Finsbury Park diesel depot but it was usually said in a 'bit of a laugh' sort of way. Peter would occasionally mention about being in the Royal Navy which he appeared to have enjoyed his time in which I presume was sometime during the mid 1950s(?). Around 1974 going into 1975 I did a few secondman's jobs with him usually always on Brush type 2s (class 31s) on the Empty Coaching Stock diagrams from Kings Cross out to Ferme Park & Hornsey carriage sidings and then bringing back the ECS back into 'the cross' for the mainline departures which was usually the preserve of the drivers & secondmen in no.5 link also I believe he also worked some of the single man drivers diagrams working on the Craven units on inner suburban jobs from Kings Cross out to WGC & Hertford North and there return workings. With regards to Peter's own railway history I believe he may have been a young fireman either at 'Top Shed' or at Hornsey sometime during the late 1950s & early 1960s but I am not sure about that because I never asked him and it was never mentioned but I had the feeling that he had lived around the Holloway/Finsbury Park area for some years if not all his life?.

I didn't see Peter again after I left Kings Cross in late 1975 but I ran into him again by chance one Saturday afternoon walking along Holloway road back in 1987 and he still looked exactly the same as he did over a decade earlier.

Thanks for the extra information Mickey regarding Peter Green...and all of your other great memories...Its fabulous that we can still communicate years on...and , that we are both from a generation of secondmen that served at the Cross in those times...I know we can become too nostalgic... and we sometimes wear ...rose tinted glasses....however, ..they were to me..amazing times in my personal ...history.....
However.....to pull us up in our dotage..( ha ha )..getting up at 2am...was, especially, in winter...ruddy awful........Manna...and Mickey keep em coming lads ...
Just before I go...how many billy cans of tea did we make for our drivers in those times.....I’d like a £ for every billy ....?...lol..
Take care lads...

G'Day Gents

I didn't know Peter well, I was like most secondmen diagrammed with him only occasionally, it was the way the system worked, I bet there are a few KX drivers I've never worked with, but Peter did keep to his self.

I'm trying to remember a driver, who's name I've forgotten, reasonably tall, well dressed (unlike most of us scruffy traincrew) tight, short curly hair, used to do odd jobs, and once upon a time did some odd jobs for a retired Admiral, he was asked by the said Admiral to clear out a old garage, which was full of junk, right up to the ceiling, so after innumerable trips to the local tip, he found, much to his surprise, a car underneath all the junk, so he asked the Admiral what he wanted to do with the car, the Admiral said 'Give me a Fiver, and you can have it' after a bit of 'tinkering' and a new battery he got it going, Turns out the car was quite a rare car, it was a Bristol, and a very fast car, he had it for quite a few years, until he sold it on. Looked a bit like this.

manna

Marx wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 8:24 am I was reading back copies of the Aslef journal obituaries...sad to see that Peter Green and Les Henderson have passed on...

As for Les Henderson after mentioning Peter Green before Les was my regular driver in 4A link at Kings Cross 'the Cambridge gang' as it was also known as and from a fading memory I think I was with Les from maybe the summer July/August of 1974 through to early 1975 with virtually all the jobs with Les being on the 'Cambridge turns' usually with a Brush type 2 (class 31) at the head of a rake of B.R.Mk1s. Les was a easy going sort of bloke about early/mid 50s when I was with him and also a pipe smoker as well anyway I had heard on the forum about four or five years ago that he passed away maybe upwards of 10 years ago now.

Thanks Mickey for the extra memories...I recall that many drivers smoked pipes and wore cloth caps.....The Cambridge link was as far as I got before leaving the job and going on to college....
Cheers