Step into reality

By gum, it's quiet, I thought to myself as I walked over to the style, the vantage point where I kept my eye on things. It was about 9.15 am on a Bank Holiday Saturday in August, in about 1938, and the weather was warm. There should have been people about. They wouldn't all be sleeping in, would they?

Then my ears caught the shrill sound of a distant train whistle and I turned to face the direction of the railway line. Yes, there it was - pulling up the slight incline with a line of carriages behind it, puffing and panting, smoke and sparks flying out of the funnel. Of course! The realisation now came to me. It was the holiday train, come to take people from Londridge to Preston and then on to Blackpool! (Once a year a passenger train would travel up on the line for the great event, a distance of some seven miles. At all other times only goods trains travelled the line.)

I remember suddenly getting quite agitated thinking of who I could ask so that I could go on the train too. I knew deep down that it just wasn't possible, but my mind wouldn't let go of the idea. My excitement at seeing the train made my brain think furiously hard. What could I do to make it possible for me to go?
The the train whistle sounded again. It was coming back down the line! Little sounds of frustration bubbled up from my stomach into my throat, in small panicky snatches as I hopped from one foot to the other. It was all so unfair, I said to myself, very close to tears now.

The train was now picking up speed as it moved down the incline. Its carriages were crammed full and people were leaning out of every window, waving or holding long coloured streamers and calling out happily to other people leaning out of their windows. As their journey began they were unaware of the lonely boy standing on the style watching them go, with a very heavy heart, taking another step on his journey into the world of reality.

All too soon it was quiet again. My mind turned over the various reasons why it was not possible for me to have gone to Blackpool too. It was all very clear really. We just couldn't afford it. I knew, that if it had been at all possible, my Dad would have made sure that I was on that train.

I didn't tell anyone how I felt; we all had to face such times of disappointment. So, I brushed away my tears and after a while found something else to occupy myself. But that is one Bank Holiday that stands out very clearly in my mind, to this day.

Dennis Crompton © 1997