Johnny May & Ted Nye

[Mickey]

Johnny May and Ted Nye a couple of names from the dim and distant past that would be familiar to any ex-signalling staff on the Kings Cross area during the early 1970s. Both men were signalling inspectors up the London end during the early 1970s and quite possibly during the the prevoius decade of the 1960s.

Johnny May was a man of about 61 or 62 years of age I would hazard a guess by the early 1970s and was a rather tall thin looking man with bit of a small moustache who often wore black B.R. trousers and a black B.R. jacket and occasionally wore a railway overcoat all topped off with a distinctive black homburg hat.

Ted Nye was of a slightly more fuller build than Johnny May and I would hazard a guess he was about 50 or 51 years old by the early 1970s and like Johnny May Ted usually wore black B.R. trousers and a black B.R. jacket but no hat this time and was referred to by some signalmen as 'Noggy' Nye.

I don't remember Johnny May ever showing up at Welwyn Garden City box when I was at the box as a telegraph lad between 1972-74 but I remember Ted Nye showing up on a couple of occasions when I was at the box possibly after something may have occurred at the box and he had turned up to find out a bit more about it because I don't think Ted was the sort of bloke who would have showed up for a 'social chat' with the signalman somehow?.

[Mickey]

A little personal memory of contact with Ted Nye...

I was at Welwyn box one morning as the telegraph lad when the box still had it's lever frame that would have been either in the second half of 1972 or the first half of 1973 and around midday on a weekday Ted Nye showed up at the box and Harry Fitzgerald was the signalman that early turn anyway before Ted showed up in the box we had a track circuit failure or a intermittent track circuit falure in the Down fast line either on the approach to of in the rear of no.24 the Down fast line starting signal towards Welwyn North which was a very rare failure to have indeed at that box so Harry sees Ted approaching the box and says to me "You better write something in the book" (the train register book) while he's 'putting the dots on' with the Hatfield No.2 and Welwyn North signalmen (sending 1-2-1-2 bells on the block bells and basically telling them both to work straight up cos we have company with us in the box) so I started writing that we had a track circuit failure in the Down fast line that showed 'on' on the track diagram including the double-letters of the actually track circuit concerned anyway Ted comes into the box and talks with Harry then he takes a look in the book and reads my entry aloud in a clear voice "Boy!. I know what you mean but does anybody else?." Soon after Ted left the box but Harry thought that remark was as funny as hell ha ha ha...

[Mickey]

One day back in 1970/71 I was riding as a passenger on a x2 car Cravens unit from Kings Cross to WGC and on slowly departing Finsbury Park station on the Down slow no.1 line and crossing the Stroud Green road bridge I glanced over at Finsbury Park No.6 as I usualy did and Johnny May was observed leaving the box alone and slowly walking down the box staircase looking solemnly ahead and dressed all in black and wearing his trademark black homburg hat and one wonders what made him visit Finsbury Park No.6 that day as we were passing Finsbury Park No.5?.

Funny what images stay in your mind half a century later...