Mum wrote a memoir while convalescing in a nursing home in the early 1990s. She had begun this on small pieces of paper, and I took in a school exercise book, into which (to my surprise) she began to write in earnest. Although she had intended to write a memoir from 1925 to 1950, her memoir actually ends in 1941, when she left school. The first part covers early holidays to Wimbledon, and very early memories of travelling by train. .
When I was very young, I used to listen to my mother and father say, ‘It wasn’t like that in our day”. I used to think would I say that when I was their age? Surely things won’t change so radically. But they did and now to keep youthful memories alive I felt it would be nice to get a few of them down for posterity.
In later life I have spent quite a good many days a year, travelling from Liverpool Lime Street on the train to London, the journey taking just under 3 hours on a good day and considerably longer on a bad one. Also, one of my lasting memories as a child was travelling by train to Seacombe Ferry – possibly round about the age of three – and then boarding the boat to Liverpool where the whole family – my sister Sheila, myself and my mother and father – took another train to Lime Street station where we boarded the steam train to travel to Euston Station, London. The luggage had been sent well in advance by rail and so all we had to do was get ourselves to my Aunty Mary and Uncle Len’s who resided at 56, Worple Road, Wimbledon. The whole journey to Euston took about four and a half hours and we then took the District Line to Wimbledon Station, where Uncle Len would meet us in his 1920’s open tourer. The whole journey was most exciting. The train to London only stopped at Crewe, Stafford and Rugby before terminating at Euston. Oh what a wonderful sound the train made as it clickety-clacked along the rails!
As it steamed into the stations mentioned above, there was always a lady in full uniform on the platform – white mob cap and white pinafore to protect her clothes, dishing out steaming cups of tea in thick white cups and saucers. The passengers got out to avail themselves of the much needed refreshments and and they carried the tea back on the train leaving the cups under the seats to be picked up later. One time, my father had to run down the platform – tea in hand – and jump on the train when it was going. My sister, my mother and myself were screaming with fright, but he made it, much to our relief. The stations teemed with porters for sixpence they would carry your bags and, if need be, put them up on the luggage rack ready for other porters to take them down again when one’s destination had been reached.
On the whole, life went at a much slower pace than it does today and I can’t remember any mad rush to get on the District Line when we arrived in Euston. I do remember however, ….at the barrier so that my mother would not have to pay the fare – under threes got it for nothing.
Mum quite often told the story of travelling to London, and she often said in the 1960s that she had been on a journey on a train to London that had stopped at every station en route. I have no way of knowing whether this was true, but it was not on this journey in the late 1920s. All this ended in 1932 when Aunty Mary moved to Wallasey. 56 Worple Road still exists as an address, but with a modern block of flats called Ash Court on its site.
4 September 2021
Joan Boughey Recalled 