ASLEFJOURNAL FEBRUARY 2021 The magazine of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen Free to members The future of our railways

Cathedrals of steam – how stations transformed the capital; The train drivers ’ Kevin George sheds light on handlamps; and the fiancée of union since 1880 John Weddle remembers the driver killed in the crash railway enginemen’ s tax fr ee saver plans

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@RailwayEnginemens Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authorit y. Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authorit y. Incorporated under the Friendly Societies Act 1992 ASLEF GS Mick Whelan JOURNAL Coronavirus crisis – The magazine of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers & Firemen there is light at the ‘Ridership of trains will take years to end of the tunnel return to normal’

ORGIVE me! I try not to use too many railway analogies but, with the rollout of the vaccine, there is light at the end of F the tunnel. We are months away from everyone being vaccinated and, even then, life will not immediately return to normal. There will still be a need for caution, social distancing, and a gradual societal shift to engaging and being with each other. It is right that those most at risk, or vulnerable, should be vaccinated Julie and John (and Josh) before the Selby crash in 2001 first, and then key workers on the front line. We are, of course, News involved in those talks and, at this time, there is a need for NHS l Williams report on the future of Britain’s railways 4 care workers and one or two other groups to be treated first. The country, the world, and our industry may never be the same l Albert Camus, author of The Plague , had a 5 simple way of separating friend from foe; plus after such a worldwide catastrophe and there will be many Off the Rails: Dishy Rishi; a grieving swan; challenges ahead. Many businesses will not survive and there is a £1.8m kickback for Khalid; Rufus Jones and real debate on the future nature of work and the traditional office. the Boss; and Rafael Behr nails the cabinet What is for sure is that footfall, and ridership of trains, will take l Downing Street Gilligan goes for driverless trains 6 many years to return and we will be facing revised timetables l Letter from Diane Stuchbury to ASLEF members 7 going forward. Some of this, hopefully, will be based on lessons l Oh, no! Vintage Trains preserve three Pacers 8 learned about performance and pinch points on the network and some will be down to demand. Features We have seen from the politicising of the necessary bailout of l Joanne Weddle-Wheatley, fiancée of the driver 10 TfL that the government wants its pound of flesh ; some Treasury- of the InterCity 225 killed in the Selby train crash, based, much political in the year of a mayoral election in , reflects on the man and her memories 20 years on from a party that has been in power for ten years and made the l Kevin George reveals how his passion for 19th 11 capital over-reliant on passenger revenues. and 20th century railway handlamps grew and This will also play out across rail with the companies in hock to grew until he wrote two books on the subject the government, and at the beck and call of the Treasury, with the l Christian Wolmar’s Cathedrals of Steam , Jim 12-13 uncertainty of Williams and how his report will be applied to Ring’s Interregnum , and Around the World in 80 Trains to help you through lockdown 3.0 come. In our 141 year history, we have risen to many challenges and, l Tony Wood prokrastiskates; Hannah Dadds, 14 Karen Harrison and Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders together, we will deal with this one . It would be easier if we had a Prime Minister who ever operated in good faith – so much for Advice and guidance on covid-19 restrictions 15 l those Brexit promises on workers’ rights! The closing of borders is ten months too late, and how many untested, and possibly Regulars infected, travellers arrived by plane or, by other means, entered l Branch Lines 16-17 the transport system and put our communities at risk? There are so many people we know who have been impacted by l Obituaries 18-19 this pandemic and thousands who have lost loved ones . That’s l Letters and Classified Advertisements 20-22 why I believe it is everyone’s duty to be vaccinated when their turn l Boris Johnson, Brexit and promises of sunlit 23 comes – for the sake of us all. I understand those who are uplands; Prize Crossword; Legal Services; uncertain, and who might want to see if there are any side effects, and members’ Change of Address form but the lessons of history tell us about the power and the benefit EditoR Mick Whelan, general secretary l dESigNER Michael Cronin PRiNtER College Hill Press, London, SW19 4HE l AdvERtiSiNg ASLEF of vaccination in eradicating disease. Therefore, when we do it, it Journal, 77 St John Street, London, EC1M 4NN. Contact Keith Richmond is not just for ourselves but for everyone. Please be safe. on 020 7324 2407 or [email protected] l ClASSiFiEd AdS [email protected] or call 020 7324 2400. The acceptance of a display or classified advertisement does not necessarily imply endorsement of that product or service by ASLEF ChANgE oF AddRESS Please post Yours fraternally, your details to ASLEF, 77 St John Street, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 4NN

The ASLEF Journal is published every month by: ASLEF, 77 St John Street, London, EC1M 4NN Tel: 020 7324 2400 l email: [email protected] website: www.aslef.org.uk l twitter: @ASLEFUnion Mick Whelan, general secretary, ASLEF

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 3 News

to run ‘a different type of railway’ and the report will give him the cover he needs to The future of change the structure of our industry. Williams recommends ending the ‘failed franchise model’ and replacing it with a system our industry of management contracts. Instead of bidding for a franchise, and taking the fare box, HE long-awaited Williams review into operators will receive a fixed fee for running a the future of the UK’s rail industry is – service while the Treasury collects the cash. T at last – on the brink of being The new structure will be overseen by a published. board of control, chaired by the Transport The report was finished 15 months ago – Secretary, giving the DfT greater control of when Keith Williams briefed ASLEF in timetables and fares. Williams also Keith Williams is giving grant Shapps the November 2019 he told GS Mick Whelan that recommends a ‘guiding mind’ for the network cover he needs to reshape Britain’s railway the structure he proposed would work – Andrew Haines of Network Rail has been whether the railway was in public ownership, review stayed at the bottom of the in-tray on lined up for the job – and roundly condemns under a Labour government, or in private Grant Shapps’ desk. the ‘fragmented nature of our privatised hands, under the Tories – but the general But Williams, who spent 18 years at British railways’. election in December that year, followed by a Airways and is now the boss of Royal Mail, told Shapps says he wants to ‘bring the railway three-way dog fight between Williams, the DfT, the Mail on Sunday his report will see the light back together’ – lifting a phrase from our GS, as and Downing Street over its conclusions, and of day in ‘January or February’. Shapps has told Mick has often called on the government to then the crisis of covid-19, meant that his MPs that the pandemic creates an opportunity ‘bring the wheels and the steel back together’.

TWEETS OF THE MONTH PM welches on QUOTE… ‘The rhetoric is very much Battle of Britain but the reality, I’m afraid, is I’m delighted after years of fighting for northern pledge more like Dad’s Army ’ – Simon Uttley , it we have axed the hated headmaster, the Blessed Hugh #TamponTax ASLEF has condemned the government for Faringdon Catholic School, Reading Steve Baker, Conservative MP for High ‘levelling down’ after it slashed funding to …UNQUOTE Wycombe, @SteveBakerHW the body that oversees transport in the north of . ‘Boris Johnson pledged, at The only thing the Tories are good at is the general election, to level up the rewriting history. @SteveBakerHW economies of the north and south,’ said GS voted against removing the tax in 2015. Mick Whelan. ‘Now he has started to level Nicola needs you #ToryLies down. Transport for the North will lose 40% @jilliebinfrance Dr Nicola Cogan, a of its core funding and one-fifth of its annual lecturer in the School support in the next financial year. The Help please. @British Gas are planning of Psychological biggest let-down, for passengers, is the way to ‘fire and rehire’ their key workers Science and Health at he has welched on his promise of £105 and slash their pay the University of million for London-style smart ticketing. He Mick Rix @RixyieOrganiser Strathclyde, and a has taken a wrecking ball to infrastructure very good friend of projects right across the board – and right ‘Life under a good government is ASLEF , would like across the north.’ rarely dramatic; life under a bad you to take part in an government is always so’ #OscarWilde anonymous 15 Oscar Wilde Society @OscarWildeUK minute online survey dr Cogan braves the into the impact of wintry weather – she Mick to run again Lie to cover up for the president? You covid-19 on the wants your help get a pardon. Corrupt politician who mental wellbeing of pandemic on the endorsed Trump? You get a pardon. Murder railway key workers. psychological health innocent civilians? You get a pardon. Elect a She said: ‘Staff have of railworkers is corrupt man as president? You get a corrupt had to respond with unknown.’ To take result. little preparation and part please go to @AdamSchiff, chair of the US House limited resources and https://hass.eu.qualtr Intelligence committee the impact of ics.com/jfe/form/SV_ managing the 50aUk4TbfL0bO4J We’ve spent five years at war with each other, devalued the £ by 20%, savaged our economy, quit the world’s Rail fares rise largest free trade zone, created a mountain the general secretary at AAd in liverpool After the government announced that rail of red tape & flushed £200 billion down the Mick Whelan is to driver before being fares would rise 2.6% on 1 March, rather than drain to ‘control our borders’. Six EU states stand for general elected full-time 1 January, GS Mick Whelan said: ‘While we just did that in 24 hours with a press . secretary again. Mick, District 6 Organiser. welcome the delay, there should be no @Howard_Goodall who has spent 36 He was elected increase in fares. It’s time to stop kicking the years on the railway, general secretary of can down the road and do the right thing, at The UK has declared a trade war on and 36 years as an ASLEF in 2011 and re- the right time, for the railway industry. To go itself active trade unionist, elected, unopposed, above inflation at this time will not encourage @IrishTimes was a freight train five years ago. ridership return post-pandemic.’

4 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 News

– one of many – is told in María’s So which side Memoria de la off the Rails Melancolía (Renacimiento, were you on? €22.90) which has RISHI SUNAK , deciding which portraits of his been republished to predecessors as Chancellor of the Exchequer to HEN Albert they say Franco, I mark its 50th hang in his office, surprisingly opted for Hugh Camus, the won’t say hello to anniversary. Gaitskell because, apparently, they both went to W French them again.’ There are the same school, Winchester, although so did journalist, No surprise, appearances, too, by Rishi’s political bedfellow Sir Geoffrey Howe, whose picture is philosopher, and really. Camus – a Federico García not in pride of place on the wall. Gaitskell did, of course, go author – he wrote La decent goalkeeper Lorca – abducted on to become leader of the Labour Party, which might have Peste or The Plague , in his youth – and killed by made him more appealing to the ambitious young which resonates in fought for the Franco’s Nationalists Chancellor. The other portrait he has chosen is William these dark days of French Resistance for being gay, and a Gladstone who, although a Liberal, ‘watched all the pennies covid-19 – turned up during the Second leftie, rather than a quite rigorously,’ says Rishi. Although Gladstone, we note, in Buenos Aires as a World War, while great poet, although also made the move from 11 to 10 Downing Street. guest of the writers writers like María, the Falange was María Teresa León who supported the notoriously A GRIEVING SWAN brought the and her husband Republican philistine – Ernest high-speed intercity railway route Rafael Alberti, he government, left Hemingway, Pablo between Kassel and Göttingen in told them frankly Spain after Franco Neruda, Maxim Germany to a halt. The swan refused how he judged a and the Falange, Gorky, Diego Riviera, to move, mourning its mate killed on stranger. with the help of Frida Kahlo, and, er, an overhead power line near the entrance to a tunnel on the ‘If I want to know Hitler’s Nazis and Joseph Stalin, a man track 100 miles north-east of Frankfurt. After 23 express someone, I ask Mussolini’s Fascists, she describes as trains were delayed the fire brigade managed to move the them, “Which side won the Civil War of ‘thin and sad, worn swan off the line and released it, unharmed, into the River did you back during 1936-39. down by something Fulda. Passengers were told the delays were the result of an the war in Spain?” If The Camus story – perhaps destiny’. unfortunate cygnet – rather than a signal – failure. KHALID HASSAN , who runs Byte Technology, which sells mobile phone accessories, and whose latest accounts reveal assets of just £12,000, pocketed a cool £1.8 million ‘kickback’ for acting as a middleman when a desperate Matt Hancock was scurrying around trying to buy personal protective equipment. Curiously, he insisted on being paid in cash – US dollars and Chinese currency – by the Department of Health for putting Matt in touch with Chinese manufacturers of masks. A DHSC spokesperson said: ‘Throughout the pandemic we have used the quickest routes to procure essential PPE.’ Not ‘alf, Matty! Ker-ching!

RUFUS JONES , who played Doctor Foggerty in Hunderby , David Wilkes in W1A , and Terry Jones in Holy Flying Circus , reveals on his Facebook page how a friend once worked with Bruce Springsteen. The Boss took him to one side one night and revealed ‘the two secrets of rock’n’roll’: ‘Never wear a watch because rock’n’roll exists outside space and time. And never keep your wallet in your back pocket because nothing must obstruct the eye line between that girl and your ass.’

María teresa león (top left); Federico garcía lorca, María, and Rafael RAFAEL BEHR nailed the plight of Britain’s Alberti in Madrid in 1934; and Albert Camus when smoking was cool Lockdown Premier in : ‘The Prime Minister laughed. Nothing about the situation 500 CLUB: Michael Roads, with number 078, won the January draw, is funny, except when Johnson’s touch makes it scooping the Retired Members’ Section jackpot of £486. darkly ridiculous. He has a quality of anti- gravitas that extends to the whole cabinet. BREXIT DIVIDEND Their collective inadequacy is hiding in plain sight. It is not QUOTE… Business Secretary Kwasi even hiding. It fills the screen completely, obscuring even the ‘Animals are my Kwarteng wants to remove rights memory of competent administration. When Priti Patel was friends… and I don’t eat UK workers had under the EU asked about the failures of pandemic management she my friends’ – George working time directive and let declared: “The government has consistently been ahead of Bernard Shaw employers abolish rest breaks, axe the curve in terms of proactive decisions on coronavirus,” …UNQUOTE holiday pay, and force employees when it is hard to draft a more precise inversion of the truth.’ to work longer hours.

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 5 News Revealed: Gilligan the geek behind driverless trains bid NDREW GILLIGAN, one automatic across all four roles). It of the Prime Minister’s addresses such questions as why, A policy advisers, is behind how, and where to automate, and a new Downing Street drive for the challenges to automation, driverless trains on Britain’s across passenger services; railway network. Gilligan, 52, is depot/yard/stabling; off-peak Boris Johnson’s transport adviser freight and maintenance; and – a role he also performed when restored railway lines. the PM was Mayor of London – And it examines timescales for driverless planes, trains and automobiles are the stuff of science- and is an über-right-wing ‘resolving regulatory issues and fiction; gilligan (right) was denounced as a ‘liar’ by lord hutton ideologue wedded to weird sci-fi ‘engaging with industry bodies’ in notions of the ‘exciting years 1 to 3; ‘procurement and the Sunday Telegraph in 2018 both Ditto trains. From time to time possibilities’ of driverless trains. training’ in years 4 to 6; and had to pay substantial damages a Tory politician, usually during The Department for Transport ‘introduction onto the live over false claims made by Gilligan. industrial action, will call for the commissioned, in August, a report network’ in years 7 to 9. Journalists on those papers say he introduction of driverless trains. from the Rail Safety and The idea, though, came not was notorious for playing ‘fast and But passengers don’t like the idea. Standards Board – written by Nick from the DfT, in Horseferry Road, loose’ with the truth. They want a driver at the pointy Reed, who trades as an expert on which has been working hard to Gilligan worked for Boris end who knows how to start – ‘future mobility’ and claims to keep trade unions on board Johnson at The Spectator and, and, more importantly, stop – the deliver ‘innovative research’ from during the coronavirus crisis, but later, for the right-wing think tank loco and its carriages. his home at Beech Court in from Gilligan in Downing Street. Policy Exchange, founded by Nick As Finn Brennan, ASLEF’s Wokingham, Berkshire, and Driverless trains is something of Boles, Francis Maude, and Archie organiser on London Sharon Odetunde, head of an obsession of Gilligan’s, who Norman. He is not a friend of the Underground, said after the PM’s academic partnerships at the told Dominic Cummings it was ‘a labour movement and thinks provocative comments about the RSSB – to be delivered by the end great wheeze’ when he set things companies should be able to hire Tube last July: ‘Boris Johnson is of January. in motion in July. and fire whoever they want, talking nonsense. Slashing The report, called Automate , Gilligan was a reporter on the whenever they want. government funding to TfL means examines four GoAs – grades of Cambridge Evening News , Daily Autonomous vehicles – that they cannot afford the automation – from 1 (with a Telegraph , and Sunday Times , but pilotless planes, cars and lorries signalling upgrade, and the other ‘human driver’ setting the train in is best known for being forced to without a driver, as well as technology, that would be motion; stopping the train; resign from the BBC – where he driverless trains – are the stuff of needed.’ closing doors; and disruption worked on the Today programme science-fiction nightmares. GS Mick Whelan says: management’ to 4 (fully and famously claimed that the Remember Isaac Asimov’s I, ‘Driverless trains are simply not Labour government ‘sexed up’ a Robot ? The truth is that viable on the infrastructure of report to exaggerate the weapons technology, at some point, always Britain’s railway network – a QUOTE… of mass destruction arsenal of fails. Driverless cars, on test, keep testament to the imagination and ‘Boris Johnson is aiming Saddam Hussein – after the crashing. Which wasn’t the plan. skill of Victorian engineers, but for Winston Churchill but Hutton inquiry into the death of And while planes have been fly- very old. Even the Docklands always seems to land on Dr David Kelly. ‘I have by-wire for years – they run, Light Railway, which was Blackadder instead’ – considerable doubts as to how literally, on automatic pilot – purpose-built to be driverless, is Helen Lewis , Sunday reliable this journalist’s evidence passengers say they still want a now staffed with a train captain Times is,’ said Lord Hutton – effectively human pilot, and co-pilot, on the who can drive the train when …UNQUOTE condemning Gilligan as a liar. flight deck when something goes needed.’ The Daily Telegraph in 2016 and wrong. Richard stands down Richard Leonard resigned as Scottish campaign – of briefings to journalists, Labour Party leader on Thursday 14 leaks of private conversations, and the January. He said: ‘I have come to the constant feeding of stories to the media – conclusion that it is in the best interests of to bring down a decent and honest man the party that I step aside as leader with have succeeded. These flinching cowards immediate effect. This was not an easy and sneering traitors make me sick.’ decision but, after three years, I feel it is SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who Richard stands shoulder to shoulder with the right one.’ Richard believed he was faced Richard each week for questions at ASlEF activists – including Kevin lindsay, likely to lose the support of the EC after Holyrood, tweeted that, despite their Mick Whelan, hugh Bradley, and John new GMB and Co-op reps said they had no political differences, she had ‘always liked McCue – at glasgow Queen Street confidence in him. Ironically, Richard was Richard. He is a decent guy and I wish him for many years the GMB’s industrial well.’ Parliament, added: ‘Whatever else is organiser in Scotland. Ruth Davidson, who quit as leader of written about Richard, I have to say I Neil Findlay, MSP for Lothian, said: ‘It the Scottish Tories in 2019, before always found him a thoroughly decent looks like those who have led a three year returning to lead the party in the Scottish man and a committed campaigner.’

6 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 News

Thank you – from the All blow and no go bottom of our hearts GS Mick Whelan has condemned a HE tragic fund – which raised government accident at £142,000 – to help suggestion that HS2 T Stonehaven the families of the be downgraded by – when the 06.38 three men who died. dropping the East ScotRail service from ‘I am humbled by Midlands leg. ‘Boris Aberdeen to Glasgow this total, which is a Christopher Stuchbury (left) and Kevin Johnson is all blow Queen Street hit a magnificent effort by lindsay, ASlEF’s organiser in Scotland and no go. He talked landslip on our members, our about levelling up. Wednesday 12 branches, and our matters and media so I was not Now he’s not even August – claimed the fellow trade difficulties they will sure how to go about levelling down. He’s lives of the driver, unionists,’ said Kevin face. And I am saying thank you to telling people in the Mick: ‘it’s all about Brett McCullough, 45; Lindsay, ASLEF’s determined, with my so many of your Midlands, and the building for Britain’ the conductor, organiser in Scotland. colleagues, to pursue members and those north, that they don’t Donald Dinnie, 58; ‘Whilst money will the causes of this who donated. matter. That a government need to and a passenger, not bring back, to the accident, and get the It was our second-class railway deliver on their Christopher families, their loved answers everyone wedding anniversary is all they need, and promises and invest. Stuchbury, 62. ones, it will help wants, for the on that day. His all they deserve. That Not just for people, ASLEF and the them deal with many bereaved families, flowers he had is, frankly, for passengers, and RMT set up a joint of the practical and for every other organised for me outrageous. Mr for the railway. But railwayman and arrived at 17.30. We Johnson and his for Britain.’ RMS – A GENTLE REMINDER woman.’ had not heard any The ongoing crisis over the coronavirus Christopher information up to means that head office is unable, at the Stuchbury’s widow that point. The police moment, to send out letters reminding Diane sent us this arrived at 18.30 to let Bluster members in our Retired Members’ Section, letter last month: us know they had an who pay annually by cheque, that your unidentified body. He John Cocker – ‘proud socialist and membership is up for renewal. So, please, if dear Kevin was to be away at European, ambivalent Labour Party you know your membership is due for I have heard from my work for one week member’ – who tweets @joecocker15 renewal, post a cheque, made payable to solicitor that I will with one more trip to posted this picture of Boris Briefing ASLEF, to head office in St John Street. An receive a third of the do before retirement Bullshit Bingo to tick off the Prime annual RMS subscription is just £15. Thanks! money raised for the on 9 September. Minister’s vacuous clichés as they trip, three families who There really are no with tedious inevitability, off his tongue lost a loved one on words to explain how between the ‘umms’ and ‘aahs’. QUOTE… 12 August 2020. broken the family are ‘Some modern politicians can make I am writing on but please pass on to classical allusions, or dance nimbly behalf of myself and your members our when interviewed, but they do not really the family to say heartfelt thank you as know anything, or understand anything. thank you from the we know you are They live entirely in the present. They bottom of our hearts. grieving also for your know little of other countries and less We are completely colleagues. about the past. They idolise Winston overwhelmed by this Keep safe during Churchill but are ignorant about him’ – generosity and these challenging Peter Hitchens , The Mail on Sunday kindness and for times. …UNQUOTE sharing this with us. Kindest regards I am not on social Diane Stuchbury

Watch The Big Meeting half-price I’m the producer of The Big Meeting film, about the Durham Miners’ Gala. Many ASLEF branches were very generous and donated money to help get the film made – so much so we have the ASLEF logo in the final credits of the film. As a thank you, we’d like to offer your readers 50% off the film on DVD. The DVD is normally £10 but we are offering it to ASLEF members for £5 (plus 75p p&p). Just go to www.galafilm.co.uk/aslef and enter the password ASLEF2020 to buy the DVD. Christie Allanson

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 7 News OMG, no! Vintage preserve the Pacer

HERE’S nowt, they say, Vintage, which runs heritage rail so queer as folk. Or, at tours out of Tyseley, T least, so queer as the Birmingham, says ‘It is pleased to folk at Vintage Trains who have announce its acquisition of an just proudly announced to the iconic set of railway rolling stock, world that they have taken ensuring that the Pacer delivery of three three-car Class experience can continue on the 144 Pacer DMUs. Yep, that’s right. main line for the benefit of Sauron – the dark lord from The Lord of the Rings – arrives at its new The rattling old buses on rails enthusiasts and the general heritage railway home near Birmingham in the West Midlands loathed by the unfortunate public for years to come.’ passengers – and drivers – forced The, er, Pacer experience? Whitehouse optimistically. Polar Express . We think people to travel on the evil things for Vintage adds, risibly, that it’s ‘Enthusiasts will undoubtedly are looking for a day out with a 35 years. ‘thanks to the generosity of crave a ride on the main line in a difference and the Pacer is When Northern ran its final Porterbrook’, one of the rip-off Pacer, but our sets will primarily ideally suited to such activity at Pacer passenger service at the RoSCos which couldn’t get rid of be used to expand Vintage Trains an affordable price’. end of November sighs of relief – its rubbish anywhere else. into the experience sector, As Neil Reid, head of news in and whoops of joy – were heard ‘The market is evolving,’ targeting new audiences and W1A , dryly mutters, ‘Good luck at every station. But now claims VT chair Michael building on the success of The with that one, matey…’

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WAYS (1) A new fight for fairness The NRC Handelsblad , a newspaper in the Netherlands, described the United Kingdom at the end of last year: ‘The ports are closed; London’s stations witnessed a veritable exodus; tens of kilometres of lorries are stranded on the country’s motorways; and ministers are publicly saying the virus is out of control. If governing is about forward thinking, Boris Johnson has failed. From saving Christmas to a hard lockdown and shortages of fruit and vegetables, how has it gone so wrong for Britain?’ gS Mick Whelan: Women and Equalities Minister liz truss (above) ‘should get real on fairness’

ASLEF has condemned remarks made by Liz Trade calling for less trade. Although we AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WAYS (2) Truss, the Women and Equalities Minister, in a might, just, be going there, too! The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia keynote Christmas speech she proclaimed as a ‘Seriously, though, what Liz Truss has said the government’s response to the New Fight for Fairness. haplessly called the “tools of the left” is an challenge of covid-19 has been ‘mired in The MP for South West Norfolk criticised agenda promoted by thoughtful and sensible inaction, plagued by failures of the state the government for focusing too much on people of all political persuasions, and most to mobilise, and Johnson’s own ‘fashionable’ issues such as race, sexuality, and political parties, to create a country in which destructive habit of promising false gender, and hit out at ‘loud lobby groups and everyone, regardless of the colour of their skin, dawns because he cannot stand to be the the idea of the lived experience’. She dismissed or their gender, or their sexuality, their bearer of bad news. Time after time, efforts to achieve a fairer society as ‘tools of background, or their birth, has the Johnson promised a return to normal the left’ that, she claimed, ‘do nothing to fix opportunity to get on. before the state was able to deliver. systems’. Her policy reset, she said, would be ‘That is what the equalities agenda is all Instead, Booster Boris delivered up a based on ‘freedom, choice, and opportunity’. about; giving everybody in Britain a chance to busted flush. Britons have cause to feel Mick Whelan, ASLEF’s general secretary, contribute to building a better Britain. It is, cheated by whispered fantasies from a said: ‘It is absolutely extraordinary that the frankly, ridiculous for Liz Truss to talk about Prime Minister who thinks optimism is a Minister for Equalities is calling for less “fashion” and “focus”. Get real…’ subsititute for hard truths and a clear, equality! It’s like the Minister for Sport calling consistent, management plan.’ for less sport, or the Secretary of State for QUOTE… AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 WAYS (3) ‘BREXIT? MAIS NON!’ – PM’S DAD ‘Boris Johnson splutters and stalls like a Die Welt newspaper in Germany said, Boris Johnson’s father Stanley has applied clapped-out Triumph Herald. The PM’s ‘The occasions are rare when you think for French citizenship now Britain has left main problem is his hair. Think that Boris Johnson really believes what the European Union. The 80-year-old transvestite ceramicist Grayson Perry he says. And his decision to cancel former Conservative MEP, who voted emerging from a washing machine on Christmas has once more shown the remain in the Brexit referendum in 2016, high spin’ – Henry Deedes , Daily Mail yawning gulf between the Prime explained: ‘It’s about reclaiming what I …UNQUOTE Minister’s airy promises and the real already have. I will always be European.’ coronavirus world.’

8 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 The ASLEF RMS 500 Club

Colleagues

The 500 Club is a fundraising venture for ASLEF’s Retired Members’ Section.

Conditions of Membership: Only retired and working members of ASLEF, including district councils and branches, plus permanent staff employed by ASLEF, can make an application to join the RMS 500 Club. The application form and standing order form can only be completed and submitted by the ASLEF member, or staff member.

Numbers in the draw cost £4 each per month. To begin making payments into club funds, all you have to do is complete the standing order form and return it to your bank. Alternatively, you can pay by cheque a year in advance; the cheque should be made payable to ASlEF RMS 500 Club . Payments need to reach the club account by 1st of every month and the draw takes place on 12th of every month – with the winning number, name, and prize printed on page 5 of the ASLEF Journal . Once you have arranged your method of payment just complete the form and return it to Peter J Smith, treasurer, RMS 500 Club, 6 devonia gardens, london, N18 1AF.

The Retired Members’ Section committee would like to thank you for your support and wish you luck in the draw!

Yours fraternally, Peter J Smith, treasurer, ASlEF Retired Members’ Section 500 Club

ASLEF RMS 500 Club application form STANDIN G ORDE R M ANDA TE To ______Ban k

Name ...... Ad dress ______Address ...... ______...... ______60-83-01 ...... BANK BRANCH TIT LE ( NOT AD DRESS) SORTING C ODE N O. Ple as e p ay Uni ty Trust Ba nk Bi rmingham 08 -60 -01 ...... ’

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February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 9 Firebox John loved to drive trains

JOANNE WEDDLE-WHEATLEY , former fiancée of John Weddle, the driver of the 04.50 passenger express, who was killed in the Selby train crash in 2001, has dedicated this poignant piece to his memory 20 years on from the disaster

OHN and I met in the went on to the main line and late 1990s, when I drove routes to Derby and Joanne Weddle-Wheatley: ‘the photo shows me with John in the J initially worked for Edinburgh, finally going onto the happy times we shared with our dog Josh, who we got as puppy’ National Rail Enquiries, before south link. working for GNER – the Great What I loved about John was at , the tree I chose and some solace, which has enabled North Eastern Railway – on the that he had such an amazing planted was a silver birch, which me to move forward in my own , as part of the ability to connect with people, John would have loved. I life, for which I am extremely onboard catering crew. without judging them, and that dedicated on his plaque a grateful. We got engaged in 2000 and he was always true to himself and sentence taken from a rather But the sadness will always be planned to marry in 2001. At the to others. distinguished railway individual, there, in one way or another, and time we got engaged it was so He fought hard for what he who also died that year, and who that sense of loss and separation nice to see so many of his railway believed was right and had over John respected. never goes away. The what-could- colleagues were genuinely happy 25 years of dedicated railway I have to say that what has have-beens will always remain a for us. I remember John received service. He loved to drive trains given me comfort over the years mystery, but the time I had with an abundance of congratulations, and, just before he died, he was are the floral tributes, left year John was really special. which was nice to see, and that, in due to go onto the north link on after year, at the crash site and He had his ways! He had his turn, made it all the more special the east coast main line, and had outside the plaque at Newcastle faults, like all of us, but, to me, he for us. also applied to be a tech driver as central station by families and was simply John, with that John started his career in 1975 well. In 2000 he had reported a work colleagues. beautiful smile and that amazing as a traction trainee at Gateshead. fractured rail and was recognised Knowing that John and the laugh. He initially drove the coastal for his eagle-eyed awareness. others have always been I know I was lucky to have had routes, via Whitley Bay, and then At the garden of remembrance remembered has helped me find him in my life and I miss him.

site, before setting out at 4.40am to drive 145 miles in a sleep-deprived The Selby rail crash condition. He was found guilty and jailed for HORTLY after 6am on 28 Immingham to Ferrybridge. five years, as well as being banned February 2001 a GNER Accident investigators estimated from driving for five years. He was S InterCity 225 passenger train the speed of the InterCity 225 as released from prison in July 2004 after driven by John, travelling from 88mph, and that of the Freightliner serving half his sentence. Newcastle to London on the east coast train as 54 mph, with a closing speed Ten years ago, on the tenth main line, was involved in a high- of 142 mph. anniversary of the crash, Hart speed accident at Great Heck near Both enginemen – freight driver bizarrely claimed it was ‘fate’ and not Selby in . Stephen Dunn, known as George, and his fault. Ten people died and 82 others were John – were killed, as was Ray Robson, He told Real Radio, now part of the seriously injured. It is the worst UK rail the GNER guard, and Paul Taylor, a Heart group: ‘I believe in fate and I was disaster this century. member of the passenger train crew, meant to be there that morning. The A Land Rover Defender driven by and Barry Needham, who worked for accident occured because I was there. Gary Hart, towing a trailer loaded with Freightliner. The same for the people that were on a Renault estate, left the westbound Hart was charged with ten counts of the train. They were meant to be there.’ carriageway of the M62 and tumbled causing death by dangerous driving. He added: ‘As far as being asleep at 30 yards down an embankment onto He pleaded not guilty and claimed, the wheel, that’s what I went to prison the southbound railway line. implausibly, that his vehicle had for. It’s not what the truth is. No deaths Hart fled the scene of the accident, suffered a mechanical fault. An occured at the point of impact with my leaving his vehicle on the track, where investigation proved the Defender was Land Rover. They all occured 700 yards it was hit by John’s train which, in turn, not mechanically defective. down the track which I feel other was deflected into the path on an It was revealed in court that Hart people should have been held oncoming freight train, hauled by a had stayed up for much of the previous accountable for, so, in my own head, Class 66 loco, carrying coal from night chatting on an internet dating I’ve dealt with it in that fashion.’

10 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 Key Worker Shine a light

were more available than the headlamps, so I changed my preference to the hand-held examples. As time went on, and I was still living at home with my parents, I began running out of space for all the memorabilia I had acquired. So I felt it was time to specialise in one aspect of railwayana. I chose handlamps. I had obtained a small number of headlamps by then, but as I had decided on handlamps, the headlamps had to go. As I had started to specialise, my knowledge started to grow and I studied the origins and the patterns, where they were made and how they were distributed.

MORE THAN 2,000 RAILWAY LAMPS After a few years of collecting, I decided to write a book on the subject as the man who should have written this book had refused to Kevin’s books offer a do it. He was a university lecturer and was a KEVIN GEORGE , a driver based at comprehensive history lamp collector of many years. He had over of railway handlamps 2,000 railway lamps, not including domestic Norwood depot, is a passionate from 1800 to 1965 lamps, along with an old Roman tallow lamp collector of railway handlamps dating (when the Bardic dating back to the years before the birth of back to the start of the 19th century. electric lamp was Jesus Christ. His knowledge far exceeded mine. Here Kevin, who is the author of two introduced) and (above) His reasoning for not writing the book is books on this specialist subject, some of the many because, no matter how much you research explains the background to his hobby lamps in his collection them, there is always something that will come out of the woodwork, and alter the known been interested in things that light up, as far theory or even destroy it altogether. This I have Y COLLECTING hobby started way back as I can remember, and as a child I was found to be true as, in writing each book, I M back as a child. I come from a very fond of Christmas tree lights. They were have found him to be spot on with his analysis. collecting family, which is how I got all the same size (back then anyway) and of Unfortunately, my friend and collecting the bug. I started out in militaria as my father different colours. It is possible that it is a very colleague has since passed away, taking much was a collector in that field. As I grew up, I mild form of OCD. knowledge with him, more knowledge that I found that it was getting harder to obtain have. Still, I have done what I can and these original items as they were getting scarce. AN LNER LOCO MAN’S HANDLAMP two books are the result. I have always been a railway enthusiast and My very first lamp was an LNER loco man’s Volume one was published in 2016, volume driving trains was a lifelong dream for me. But handlamp. I remember thinking that it was not two in 2019, and there are still a number of as my father was an HGV driver, my interest a headlamp but, of course, it was still railway, copies of both books available if anyone is turned to trucks. Hence, when I turned 21, I so I bought it. Then I acquired another five interested. I should point out that each is a became a truck driver. But as time went on, I handlamps of varying shapes and different separate volume and not a revamp of the first came round full circle and my interest returned companies, and I thought to myself that these with the second. to the railways.

MILITARIA WAS HARDER TO OBTAIN At the same time the militaria was getting Railway Handlamps of the British Mainland volume one (256 pages) costs harder to obtain and I found a few items that £25 plus £4 first class postage or £3 second class. my father acquired appertaining to the Railway Handlamps of the British Mainland & Ireland volume two railways. I then decided to go into railway (442 pages) is £30 plus £5 first class postage or £3.50 second class. memorabilia as I thought it would not be so You can buy both books for £55 plus £8.50 second class postage. If you sought after, but I was wrong! are interested please email me: [email protected] However, I went to my first antique fair at And if you are already a collector and have a lamp you wish to get any Ardingly showground in Sussex. I was collecting anything and everything – badges, information about, please contact me on the same email address and I buttons, a cast iron sign – but what I really will be glad to help in any way I can. wanted was a loco head lamp. I have always

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 11 Agenda The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat. No one left and no one came on the bare platform

To stay safe – and to stay number of stations. The reason they ended up sane – during lockdown 3.0 as a ring around the centre, nearly all connected KEITH RICHMOND turned a by the Circle line, is a key part of this story.’ few pages to enjoy a new tour of London’s main line ‘Terminus, which just means “the end” is, though, a Latin word’ – Peter Kaminski railway stations, train journeys on every There are, he argues, other that can be continent, Prince Andrew’s propensity, ‘imagined – ‘one with a huge central station in after his divorce, for dating much the heart of the city, or another where there are younger models, a compelling dystopian fewer but better co-ordinated stations’ – but novel set just after the Second World War ‘competition not co-operation was the zeitgeist (which apparently Germany won), and and it was the whim of the railway companies, three contemporary chapbooks moderated only by the light touch of Parliament, that resulted in the pattern of the ONDON has twelve major railway capital’s railways.’ stations – Cannon Street, Charing Wolmar has a good eye and an elegant pen L Cross, Euston, Fenchurch Street, King’s (or, at least, his fingers fly across the keyboard Cross, Liverpool Street, London Bridge, pounding out very readable sentences) and he Marylebone, Paddington, St Pancras, Victoria, understands the industrial and social history of grace (and that car crash of an interview with and Waterloo – if you don’t include Blackfriars, Britain since the advent of the railway age after Emily Maitlis on Newsnight in 2019). As a child, Moorgate, and Waterloo East, which is more the Stockton & Darlington Railway opened for when he happened to catch an episode of the than any other city in the world. These great business in 1825. This is a terrific book for popular soap Coronation Street , as the cathedrals of Victorian England are the hub not anyone interested, not just in London’s stations, formidable barmaid Bet Lynch flew into a rage, just of the capital’s transport system, but of the but in the development of the railway since the he shrieked to courtiers, ‘Oh, God, look at all country’s whole transport infrastructure, capital’s first terminus, London Bridge, opened those common people.’ connecting people and places throughout the in 1836. Andrew has always been a terrific snob with United Kingdom. an enormous sense of personal princely In his new book Cathedrals of Steam (Atlantic ‘Books are the plane, and the train, and the entitlement. There is the royal family, and then Books, £25) Christian Wolmar tells the story of road. They are the destination, and the there are the plebs. There are his own how these palaces of the industrial revolution journey. They are home’ – Anna Quindlen daughters, and then there are all those under- came to be built – their constuction causing age girls abused by his intimate friend, the ‘In a coda, he addresses John Betjeman, Poet convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. considerable upheaval as houses, shops, schools and even churches were demolished and green Laureate, rail enthusiast, and author of a This book reveals, in excruciating detail, just open spaces paved over to make way for engine ‘charming but not always accurate’ guide to what an egotistical oaf he really is, and explains sheds and marshalling yards, platforms, toilets, London’s Historic Railway Stations published in why so many people believe that the allegations ticket offices and waiting rooms – and how they 1972. Wolmar notes that these great railway levelled against him of indulging in sex with helped to transform not just the capital but the cathedrals ‘are not the dirty and dying buildings underage girls – which he denies – should be country. you saw and feared’. Rather, ‘they represent a tested in court. He has been careful to avoid fantastic asset that has helped London retain its going back to the United States, where he could ‘I decided to use terminuses rather than status as a global city, admired, and indeed have his collar felt by the feds, but his termini as there seems no good reason to use loved, the world over.’ extraordinary claims about an apparent inability a Latin plural for a technology that the The art of writing a good travel book is not so to sweat (and his propensity for enjoying Romans, despite their ingenuity, did not much the journey itself – unless you’re Bruce plebeaian food at Pizza Express) might yet be ‘develop’ – Christian Wolmar Chatwin or Jan Morris – as the telling of good tested if Ghislaine Maxwell spills the beans in a stories, and the characters you meet, as Monisha bid to save her own neck. Wolmar, 71, knows his stuff. As well as covering Rajesh demonstrates in Around the World in 80 transport as a journalist for and Trains (Bloomsbury, £9.99). ‘Saint Pancras was a 14-year-old Christian , and writing a column in Rail In Thailand, sharing food with a family from martyred in Rome in AD304 by the Emperor magazine since 1994, he has knocked out a the Netherlands, she is told: ‘We have a word, Diocletian. In England he is better known as a string of books, including Engines of War: How gezellig , which means that there are no railway station’ – John Betjeman Wars Were Won and Lost on the Railways; The boundaries and that everyone is sharing and ‘ Subterranean Railway: How the London getting along… like we are a train family.’ Interregnum by Jim Ring (£8.99) is a wonderful Underground was Built; Railways & The Raj: How dystopian novel published by WriteSideLeft, a the Age of Steam Transformed India; To the Edge of ‘The royal who could do no wrong is now the small, young, and enterprising new 21st century the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Express; pariah prince’ – Nigel Cawthorne company run by Siobhan Harrison at Bridport in and The Great Railway Revolution: The Epic Story Dorset to ‘promote young writers and good of the American Railroad . ‘There is a telling story in Prince Andrew, Epstein, writing’. The private railway companies, he writes, Maxwell and the Palace by Nigel Cawthorne It is set in 1946 when Britain is occupied by ‘were rapacious land grabbers whose rivalry was (Gibson Square, £20) which goes to the heart of the Nazis after Germany’s victory in the Second responsible for the establishment of such a large the man and explains his precipitous fall from World War. Everything seems lost – until Hitler is

12 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 Books

on the write lines: Christian Wolmar at St Pancras; Jim Ring with Siobhan harrison and the actor Mark Williams; Monisha Rajesh; Nigel Cawthorne; Jamie McKendrick; Kathrin Schmidt; and Sd Curtis

From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain assembled in the estuary | let loose their Fly as thick as driving rain; growling hoot, the long drawn note | on And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Neptune’s harsh bassoon, into the dark || Painted stations whistle by… between us and the far shore of Port Sunlight, | cramming the black vault of heaven | with the Mersey’s immemorial miseries, | in one sweary assassinated on a visit to London – an act which they were accessible and affordable. jubilant answering-back.’ triggers an extraordinary struggle for power Chap comes from the Old English word ceap , You don’t have to have taken a ferry across among the Nazi leadership, among the peoples meaning deal, and is the root of our modern the Mersey, or to have spent long in Liverpool, of Occupied Europe, and at the heart of power English word cheap as well as streets such as only to have a little knowledge about the in the Oval Office in Washington. Cheapside and places like Chepstow; while history of that great city, and to have stood on chapman, from the Old English ceapmann , the banks of the river, to admire that line about ‘When I have a little money, I buy books; and, means dealer or seller. ‘the Mersey’s immemorial miseries’. if I have anything left, I buy food and clothes’ Tony Ward and Angela Jarman of Arc The poet and novelist Kathrin Schmidt was – Erasmus Publications, who work out of a 150-year-old born in 1958 at Gotha in what was then the cotton mill at Todmorden in Lancashire, have German Democratic Republic. Her poems – with ‘Interregnum is part alternative history, with its launched a series of new chapbooks – three their complex word play, beautifully translated complex and clever mix of real and fictional each spring, three in the autumn – at what the here by Sue Vickerman – reflect thoughtfully on characters; part gripping thriller, with twists and poet and painter Jamie McKendrick ruefully the loss of identity, and the sense of being left turns to keep you reading until the very end; acknowledges is ‘an inauspicious time’. behind, since reunification. and part a knowing and elegant literary work by Vickerman explores the parallels between a writer from Norfolk who has won awards for ‘A life of doing nothing is a life | well-lived, is the north-side divide in England and the his non-fiction books – Erskine Childers won the casting a shadow only where | other shadows tensions that still exist between east and west in Marsh Prize for Biography and We Come Unseen: live’ – Doing Nothing by Jamie Germany, as in The Day of the Drop-Dead Divas : The Untold Story of Britain’s Cold War Submariners McKendrick ‘in berlin’s emboldened backwaters, rumblings won the Mountbatten Prize – as well as his ‘ half-blathered, | the tongues of the pot-bellied documentary films. The Years (Arc, £8) contains fifteen finely- turning cartwheels, today’s metro masters | are Chapbooks, originally, were cheap and wrought poems with fifteen matching ink and laughing all the way to the bank.’ cheerful pamphlets, sold on the street by watercolour images by McKendrick, who was pedlars, hawkers and chapmen, containing born in Liverpool and has published seven ‘Take a good book to bed with you; books ballads, folk tales, ghost stories, nursery rhymes, collections with OUP and Faber & Faber over the don’t snore’ – Thea Dorn or, sometimes, radical political broadsides, often last 30 years. He has, until now, kept his two illustrated with woodcuts, and usually consisting artistic selves separate; but when they meet, Diary of a Divorce by SD Curtis (Arc, £7) is a of 16 pages octavo or 24 pages duodecimo. here in this delicately formal hall of mirrors, ‘brutally honest account of the break-up of a They began to appear in Britain in the middle each burnishes the other, and both the poems relationship. ‘The “grown apart”, | the “different of the 17th century and were bought and read and the pictures shine a little brighter. paths”, | the pantomime pleasantries | made for not by the middle- and upper-classes, but by This is Mersey Foghorns in its entirety: ‘On the parlour tragedies. | I have skidded around | the working men and women, not least because stroke of twelve every New Year’s eve | the boats edge of grief, | and muddied my arse.’

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 13 Key Worker Slams, slappies and slides

TONY WOOD , a train driver since 1996, fantastic pieces of artwork by Dan Bryant, and a member of ASLEF for all that time, Arron Campbell, and Jason “Hillbilly” Cheverall, is also a poet and a skateboarder. He’s all talented artists.’ And, his publisher adds, just written a book born, he says, ‘inside ‘The honesty, the self-deprecation, and the the mind of a youthful adult, and humbleness meld together into an utterly readable, involuntary, nod and gigglefest.’ drenched with the wretched desire to It is very readable, and a lot of fun, much of roll on my wheeled plank until my body it played for laughs – ‘I’ve been skating quite a starts to decompose’ while, I’ve no ability, grace or style | I mostly end up in a pile!’ – but there’s nostalgia for lost COULD quit skating if I really tried,’ youth – ‘Those halcyon days were the best I smiles Tony Wood. ‘I did it once had | I miss those times and it makes me sad | I before. But a little piece of me died.’ Public domain was so f***ing rad | On rainy Tony rides a skateboard when he doesn’t days that drove us mad’ – and a little tony: ‘the drive a train and, as ‘poetry and rhymes come philosophy, too: ‘You don’t quit skating common very easily to me and, generally, involve a because you’re broken, you’re broken because emotions of minimum amount of effort’ he has now you quit skating’. And he vows: ‘I shall return many a written his first book, a collection of poems, when isolation ends | And share my love with middle-aged and less-than-idle thoughts, about his passion selected friends.’ skateboarding for the board on wheels. Procrastiskate by Tony Wood (Stour Valley human’ ‘My book is an anthology of skateboard- Publishing, £7.99) is available from related poetry, and musings, with some www.shookbop.com Women who blazed a trail for their sex

DOCTOR and his child of Flanders during the Great War are injured in a serious of 1914-18, which changed the A car crash but taken to architecture of women’s lives in different hospitals. When the child the 20th century. is wheeled into the operating Progress, though, was pitifully theatre the consultant tells staff, ‘I slow. Women were only allowed cannot operate on this boy onto the floor of the Stock because he’s my son.’ How come? Exchange in 1973; the first woman Okay, okay, it’s a rather well- pilot didn’t fly a plane for British worn riddle, but the fact that Airways, the national flag carrier, some people still puzzle over the until 1987; and the first female answer – the consultant is, of priest was ordained in the Church course, a woman – is testament to of England only in 1994, and the ladies on the ladder (above right); hannah sadly entrenched attitudes about first bishop consecrated in 2005, dadds climbs into the driver’s cab; and genders and jobs. Jane Robinson, while the Church of Rome still Karen harrison (above) as one of the author of Ladies Can’t Climb clings to the rather outdated idea Magnificent Seven back in the day Ladders (Doubleday, £20) says that that only a man in a frock can save when she told friends she was our souls. who started driving on the main writing a book about the first Ladies Can’t Climb Ladders is a line for British Rail in 1979 out of professional women, people celebration of the unsung Old Oak Common. Karen was smirked because – nudge, nudge, heroines who paved the way for ASLEF’s first female branch exhibiting racism and xenophobia wink, wink – the oldest profession women today. Robinson, a social secretary, our first female LDC rep, as well as sexism, like ‘comparing was, proverbially, prostitution. historian, is less interested in the the first female delegate to our Chinamen with Englishmen’. More than 100 years have famous – such as Nancy Astor, the annual assembly of delegates, and Robinson quotes Margaret elapsed since the Sex first female MP, or Elizabeth the first woman to be elected to Partridge, an electrician and the Disqualification (Removal) Act Garrett Anderson, the first woman chair AAD (in 1995). first woman to wire an English 1919 allowed half the population doctor – than the hundreds of When it was suggested, in village for electric light, explaining of Britain – women – to train as ordinary, hard-working, first- 1918, that women should be that, to succeed in what was doctors, lawyers, architects, footers who blazed a trail. admitted to the higher grades of regarded as men’s work, women engineers, academics, and clergy. Women like Hannah Dadds, the civil service, the Civil Service needed to have ‘the impudence And it was this legislation, she the first female London Commissioner promptly of a small monkey, the epidermis argues, rather than the oft-cited Underground driver, who passed responded that a woman proving of a hippopotamus, the patience role of women on the home front out on 5 October 1978 and herself ‘equal to a man in of an elephant, and the energy doing the jobs of men who had operated Tube trains on the competitive examination’ was of an ant.’ gone to the front line in the fields District line; and Karen Harrison, meaningless. It was, he claimed, Keith Richmond

14 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 Points and Crossings Covid-19 Colleagues In response to the government’s announcement regarding covid-19 restrictions ASLEF’s executive committee has reviewed its advice and guidance to ensure it is still suitable and relevant.

LOCKDOWN 3 – MAIN PRINCIPLES Negotiators and representatives should carry out a full review of the agreements and measures currently in place within their relevant companies with a view to their suitability to accommodate the current restrictions. Where applicable, negotiators and representatives are to ensure that the requirements laid out in RiCF and ASlEF agreements and guidance are being strictly ASlEF’s executive committee (photo taken by Andrew Wiard long before lockdown, covid, and adhered to. Any failure on behalf of the social distancing) EC4 Mark Wakenshaw, EC3 John Metcalfe, EC1 Marz Colombini, EC7 (and company concerned to apply ASlEF and vice-president) Andy hudd, gS Mick Whelan, EC5 howard Kaye, EC6 (and president) dave RiCF agreements and guidance should be Calfe, EC8 terry Wilkinson, and EC2 Jim Baxter dealt with within the machinery of negotiation as fully and quickly as possible. strain of the virus and be amended and procedure that guarantees the attendance implemented as appropriate. the numbers of our members at the official vaccination TRAINING of people at work are to be re-assessed appointment. these are to take into Agreed training programmes and their against the facilities available and the account the covering of open turns of duty associated risk assessments should be precautionary measures that are in place in to ensure that the member’s rest periods reviewed to ensure that the various relation to social distancing and cleaning. are observed prior to vaccination and elements (classroom, static and practical ensure that any delays in the vaccination handling, etc) are still essential and safe to COMPANY-BASED TEST & TRACE procedure (anecdotal evidence suggests continue. these reviews should take into Negotiators are to ensure that companies there can be long queues at medical account local and regional factors as well as have a robust reporting system in place to facilities) does not impact on their next turn governmental restrictions. this should also deal with the eventuality of a positive test of duty. Members should not suffer any loss include a review of the requirement for for coronavirus, including rapid reaction of pay due to attending official vaccination members who have to travel long distances cleaning of mess rooms, driving cabs, and appointments. to carry out training with a view to ensuring other facilities, as well as tracing instances that this is kept to an absolute minimum. of close contact. Negotiators should ensure SIDE EFFECTS Any training programmes (where it is that this reporting system informs all the the current advice we have is that the agreed that they are continued) should be relevant people necessary, including local vaccinations do not give the recipient any conditional on the adherence to health and safety representatives, to ensure side effects in the majority of cases. requirements laid out in ASlEF and RiCF that precautions are carried out correctly however if, in the event, our members do agreements and guidance where and in a timely manner. Any company- feel adverse effects from the vaccine (that applicable. it is also reiterated that all based test and trace reporting system may impair their ability to drive trains) they participation in training should be should be robust enough to ensure that all should report sick in line with the voluntary, regardless of driving role or the affected people are notified whilst company’s procedures. Negotiators should grade. if there is any failure to adhere to the protecting the anonymity of the person ensure that any period of sickness resulting parameters contained in the RiCF guidance tested positive. from the vaccination process does not form on training or that the precautions on social part of MFA or any sickness management distancing and depot/cab cleaning are not VACCINATIONS procedure. being met, then negotiators should We have a representative on a stakeholder consider withdrawing from the training working group that will consider the COVID TESTING agreement until outstanding issues are government’s rollout of the coronavirus Negotiators should ensure that the resolved to their satisfaction. vaccine and how this can be managed in distance our members are required to the context of the railway industry. We will travel to attend a covid-19 testing facility as DIAGRAMMING AND ROSTERING provide further details as and when we a part of their duties is kept to an absolute diagram content in relation to current receive them; however, the following minimum. service levels should be reviewed. guidance should also be considered. Negotiators are to ensure that the ASlEF ADHERENCE TO RESTRICTIONS best practice guidance is applied in relation RECEIVING THE VACCINE given the severity of this most recent wave to diagramming and rostering, especially if our members are provided with an of infections it is in everyone’s best interest where our members are not required to opportunity (via an official appointment) to to ensure that we all adhere to the attend the workplace. receive a covid-19 vaccination, they should workplace restrictions that have been put take this opportunity as a priority and in place within our company/s as agreed by FACILITIES inform their employer of the details as our negotiators. Risk assessments should be reviewed to required by their company’s procedures. ensure their suitability to deal with the new Negotiators are advised to agree a Yours fraternally, GS Mick Whelan

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 15 Branch lines ASLEF’s first office damaged by blaze

hE Commercial inn at public house, on the corner of holbeck in – Sweet Street and Marshall T ASlEF’s first head Street, run most recently by the office – was badly damaged by leeds United and Scotland fire on Saturday 2 January legend Peter lorimer, closed its when flames swept through doors three years ago. both floors of the two storey Police, who are treating the building. the West Yorkshire blaze as arson, are investigating Fire & Rescue Service was called the attack. at 7:10pm and seven appliances the pub has a long history, – including an aerial unit – from but is not a listed building. A the Commercial pub, now boarded up, is in something of a sorry state across the city raced to the blue plaque commemorating scene. the ASlEF connection was leeds Civic trust when the pub the care of the Middleton the substantial victorian removed for safe keeping by was closed, and is currently in Railway. A warm welcome from ASLE&F at the landlord Lorimer in Leeds Commercial Inn JOHN THORPE , Stratford 205 branch secretary, wrote this article for A manifesto for the Associated Society of the Journal in 2013 after a trade union trip to the past in Leeds locomotive Steam Enginemen & Firemen, dated February 1880, states: ‘We propose that a Society At a District 5 weekend be formed, consisting of enginemen and firemen school in Cambridge, only. Enginemen to pay 5 shillings, firemen 2 organised by DO Nigel shillings.’ Gibson earlier this year, the first eight branches were established at we discussed a visit to Bradford, Carnforth, leeds, liverpool, Neath, the first ASLEF head Pontypool, Sheffield, and tondu. office in Leeds. Nigel ‘it was decided, for reasons of economy, that and Howard Kaye, our the affairs of our Society should be conducted by a EC member, put the committee elected from the leeds branch, leeds plan into action and a being chosen as the most convenient position for delegation went on the movement, and the men at leeds were vested Saturday 22 June as part with directing authority in January 1881.’ of an historic, the first rule book of the Associated Society of informative, and cultural les Muir, Nigel gibson, and howard Kaye locomotive Engineers & Firemen was issued to day out to see where underneath the blue plaque celebrating the pub’s members in 1881 as ‘registered under the trade the roots of our trade previous life as ASlEF’s head office Union Acts, with registered office at the union were born. pleased we had come to gone by, where the Commercial inn, Sweet Street, holbeck, leeds.’ The Commercial Inn, pay tribute to the story of our union was on Sweet Street, is heritage of his born, and the seeds where ASLEF had its first establishment. Of planted of where we are head office in 1881. The course, it would have today. pub has seen better been rude not to have Members from King’s QUOTE… days, but the historic partaken of a drink or Cross, Bishop’s Stortford, ‘Pubs mean so much to so many and the idea that value of the few to soak up the feel and Stratford were even they are being obliterated on the back of some establishment is noted of the place! treated to a governmental back of a fag packet thinking is by a blue plaque issued So we adjourned to performance on the unconscionable. Official explanation is colander- by Leeds Civic Trust. We the lounge and house piano by one of holey, the stats cobbled together via questionable were made to feel very exchanged tales and our retired members, timescales. There is no definitive proof that the welcome by the anecdotes and had a who is rather handy hospitality industry is largely responsible for the landlord who turned very enjoyable visit. You when it comes to spread of the coronavirus but it’s being penalised as out to be Peter Lorimer can feel the history in tinkling the ivories, so though it is – particularly the pub.’ – Marina of Leeds United fame the room, where many a the visit was rounded O’Loughlin , The Sunday Times Magazine from the 1960s and ’70s! debate and off with a good old …UNQUOTE Once we introduced groundbreaking fashioned East End ourselves as ASLEF agreement were knees-up, albeit in the members he was very thrashed out in years heart of Yorkshire!

16 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 Branch lines Old cabs must meet Encouraging engagement I find myself writing should make the be perfect with my this, utterly furious, first holder show some responses and the new standards with the language responsibility for manners – contained in James them. nevertheless, I try to Sutherland’s piece in It infuriates me understand where Leamington Spa branch held its the December edition that within the union, people are coming latest Zoom meeting on Sunday of the ASLEF Journal and with those who from, as from 13 December, and we were bringing into question would seek to engagement comes pleased to be joined online by members’ previous promote the Labour understanding, and Dave Calfe, EC president, and Bob careers and, second, Party, there is an you build bridges with Earlam, WM Trains company by his correspondence attitude growing that understanding not council. in the January issue of if you’re not with us alienate those who Dave spoke on the following the Journal where he you’re against us. ‘For surely you need national points: the Stonehaven continues to point out the many, not the few’ support from when accident, and the £142,000 raised that he offers no is, by its very nature, wishing to change for the affected families; covid apology. divisive; surely we things? issues relating to mess rooms, I’m sorry but that, should be trying to I, for one, thank training, meetings happening on frankly, isn’t good bring people together those who have been Zoom, and more use of email with enough and I, for one, through solidarity and in public service head office being closed; LU and will apologise for him be ‘for everyone’? before they joined the TPE strike actions; pensions; how dave Zoomed into leamington as someone who sees I might not agree footplate and ASLEF. old cabs should now meet the division and labelling with everyone else’s Patrick Collum , new standards; and how an coming to replace the outgoing unacceptable. No opinion and I may not Euston 075 branch outside company wants to start 153 and 170s; and the number of one’s opinion has ever training drivers. people in mess rooms during been changed Bob went next on to more covid. through insults and local points, including We then concluded our normal labelling people ‘pale, Leamington’s LLC election; DCC branch activities, including our male, and stale’ is an having a daily covid call with election of officers for 2021 and insult. management; driver training would like to thank both Bob and Insults only bubbles being started; WM Trains Dave for joining us on Zoom. Best undermine what are RDW sanctioned to the end of wishes to all, and stay safe in otherwise good points February; WMT’s pay offer and the 2021. about recruitment and failure to agree; new 196 units Nick Walker , 115 branch chair lack of diversity. Opinions are just that Live scene from the Channel Tunnel: Boris but having a platform looks well as the Fat Controller. PETER HARVEY for those opinions Russell Moorhouse WICKED SENSE OF HUMOUR It is with deep sadness that I have to BILL THOMAS MEN OF HARLECH report the sudden and unexpected Retired driver Bill Thomas passed away peacefully in his sleep on death of our King’s Cross and, later, Saturday 2 January at the age of 91. Bill was born at Brynsiencyn on Preston friend and colleague Peter Anglesey and joined the railway on 30 June 1947 at Bangor. He left in Harvey. He died recently after losing the 1950s for Saltley, eventually ending up at Tyseley where he retired in his battle with throat cancer. 1993. Bill was married to Morveth and lived in Shenstone. They had two Pete began his railway career at children, a boy and a girl. He was a great guy, quite a character, who King’s Cross in the mid-1970s, when we didn’t suffer fools gladly. Bill could often be heard singing Men of had a conveyor belt of new starters Harlech , rather badly, but as a true Welsh-speaking lad he didn’t care! and leavers due to the shock of shift Clive Matthews said, ‘I have 1,001 stories about Bill! Eighteen months as work. his booked mate and he only punched me once’ – and, if you know He was a unique character with a Clive, that was a miracle. wicked sense of humour. When Pete Debbie Insull , Birmingham New Street 141 branch befriended you, you knew you had a friend for life, as all his long-standing mates will testify. Once, on holiday, we IAIN BECK EMPLOYEE DIRECTOR bumped into another KX driver, Les Retired York driver Iain Beck passed away on 29 September, after a short Pete’s British Rail i/d card Lincoln, with his wife, who were also illness, aged 73. He started on the railway in May 1962 and spent his on holiday visiting friends. So, naturally, we had to retire to the nearest entire career at York, starting at York north shed. Iain started as an beachside watering hole for refreshments. engine cleaner and progressed through the grades to pass out as a Pete said he would catch up later, as he wanted to top up his suntan. driver in the 1980s. His final company was TransPennine Express, and he Ten minutes later he was back. Asked why, he dryly muttered, ‘I’m fed up had the honour of being the first employee director. Iain retired in of beach vendors making a beeline for me, trying to flog me cheap September 2007, after finishing his three year term as employee sunglasses and crap jewellery, when I’ve seen better in Woolies back director, and having done just over 45 years. He was a great character in home.’ the mess room, always willing to help out the new and younger drivers. Condolences to wife Helen and family at this difficult time. We will all Iain loved birdwatching, gardening, and his railway books. Our miss you, mate. Until we meet again… condolences to his wife and family from all the railway family at York. G Albertelli , Retired Members’ Section Adrian Cook , York 243 branch secretary

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 17 obituaries

dealing with an incident he was IAN VIRCO involved in, and it was something that LOVE OF THE SKIES ABOVE OUR HEADS he struggled to come to terms with. he felt very much alone despite the best efforts of reps to bring about an Bletchley branch was saddened to equitable resolution. learn of the passing of legendary ian was probably the most introvert Bletchley driver ian ‘Biff’ virco who extrovert you could imagine. he loved slipped away on Sunday 6 december being in the company of others and, as after being admitted to hospital. he we know, loved to engage in had been poorly for a month or so, conversation, but found it hard collapsed, and was admitted with making first contact. he was never renal failure which weakened his confident around others, and let very heart. he was not alone as a friend Biff virco: More kites than a kite shop few people into his life. he suffered from his car club sat with him during with his mental health, but 25 or 30 his last hours. stemmed from his dad, who was at one years ago this wasn’t recognised or ian was born on 15 August 1965 at time a tt racer. he didn’t just like dealt with in the sympathetic way it is Northampton general hospital and engines, and whatever they were now. grew up in Woburn Sands, with his attached to, but had a love of taking Four years ago he was diagnosed as parents and younger sister, which is things apart to see how they worked. being on the autistic spectrum, where he remained. his school years And he loved preserving things; cars, something which very few people proved difficult, he found them engines, whatever. he didn’t want knew about, but it was another challenging, but he discovered a love what he considered a fine piece of stigma, another burden, to deal with. of anything flying, whether birds, engineering to disappear off the face one thing led to another and he was planes or kites. of this earth. And this led him to moving into a darker place. the Biff was a keen watcher of birds another great love, opel Mantas. ian diagnosis caused him great and, when anyone discovered this, he was a legend in those circles, a larger fascination and anxiety in equal would take a while telling us the than life character in the club who measure. difference between being a worked tirelessly, preserving vehicles, ian, or Biff as he was affectionately birdwatcher – the bracket in which he marshalling at events, and assisting known at Bletchley, was one of the put himself – and a twitcher. Without others with repairs. railway’s characters, with all the pausing for breath and without letting he was a keen cyclist as well, and human flaws. But he had a heart of you get a word in edgeways. You knew built and maintained not only his own gold and just wanted to be accepted everything by the finish! he was very bikes, but other people’s, too. his first and loved. good at making sure we all had all the job, before joining the railway, was in a despite these flaws and difficulties facts, as he saw them, and that is said cycle shop and, whilst cycling, he he made many lasting friendships. in the nicest possible way. acquired his nickname. despite being Sadly, the curse of covid prevented his dad was in the Royal Air Force a successful audax rider – a long many attending his funeral service. and worked as an aircraft engineer, so distance specialist like his father – he only 16 could attend but, had these that’s probably where his love of the didn’t really have a lot of joy in the cut been normal times, we would have sky, and everything the wind would and thrust of road racing. been queueing out of the door to pay carry through it, came from. he began his railway career as a our last respects, such was the lasting Biff had more kites than a kite shop; trainee guard in 1986. he loved his job impression he left on people. Sadly, he all shapes and sizes, and different but really wanted to be a driver and, never knew how well-loved and characteristics, from simple kites to when the opportunity came along, respected he really was and, outside competition kites to kites that if you moved over to the driving grades. he the railway, he had another circle of didn’t know what you were doing had the dubious accolade of being the interests and friends. would lift you off the ground. he even last second man, before the i am grateful to Paul and Sharan had a Youtube channel with kite introduction of the train crew concept, Spires, ian’s long-term friends for their videos (who even knew?) his and passed out as a driver at Bletchley help with these words, and for enthusiasm for the things he loved in 1989. When he was accused of being stepping in to handle ian’s affairs since was endless, and so was his love for a boil in the bag driver, he would reply, his passing. donations in his memory letting us know, too. ‘i’m a Costa Brava driver – the last can be sent to Forest of Marston vale ian also had a passion for anything resort.’ he had a dry wit. at www.marstonvale.org that made a noise and smelled of during the last few years there were Graham Croucher , Bletchley 027 petrol or diesel; again, this probably some difficult times at work for ian branch secretary

We can all be allies disadvantaged background’ to be ‘currently at does not offend me. Anyone who has suffered the bottom of the pile in our society’ after discrimination, bullying, or abuse in public for In response to Richard Martin’s letter ‘We need women, people of colour, LGBTQ+, those with being in any of those categories knows that different views, not just an echo chamber’ visible, or invisible, disabilities, and anyone any silent bystander appears to be on the side Journal (January) we all need to acknowledge who is a combination of any of those, who are of the abuser – staying silent implies intersectionality. What is a ‘young white boy also from a ‘severely disadvantaged’ complicity. It can render the receiver feeling from a severely disadvantaged background’? background. like he or she is the one in the wrong, for The implication appears to be of a class nature. I am a person who is a few of the above existing. I agree that echo chambers won’t get Yes, finances are one aspect of disadvantage combined, and I have no issue acknowledging us far. Allies make all the difference – and we that should not be ignored – but I would only that I have benefited from white privilege. A can all be allies. regard a ‘young white boy from a severely sign proclaiming ‘white silence is violence’ Rachel Sherwell , London

18 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 obituaries

PETE CHAPMAN ONE OF THE VERY BEST

Peter Chapman passed away on Boxing Day, Saturday 26 December, at the age of 75. He began his 45 year footplate career at Trafford Park MPD in 1964 at 19. When Trafford closed he said farewell to life behind the Stretford End and (he thought) to steam . He transferred to Guide Bridge Pete at Rowley station (right) mixed traction depot and, in with fireman Chris Ward, Eddie 1973, when British Rail relaxed Bowlas, John hughes, Paul its ban on steam once more Banks, and John Forrest offered his services on the shovel. last pair to work a passenger On Saturday 21 June 1980 train over the old CLC main line he was rostered, along with his section from Woodley Junction former Trafford Park mate, to Cheadle Junction, steam- driver Sid Williams, to fire hauled to boot. Merchant Navy 35028 on part When Guide Bridge closed, of the Edge Hill-Hereford in 1986, Pete made a transfer steam section of an to Victoria his last and beer – and said they had enthusiasts’ rail tour, The Clan move. In 2010 his retirement never shifted as much ale Line Farewell. The engine had party coincided with a before. The Matlock Mercury come to the end of its 10 year Longsight away day to not only did a piece on him boiler ticket and was being Derbyshire and the former inside, they put a picture of withdrawn for maintenance Manchester Central to St Pete on the front page, too. work. Little did we know it was Pancras route familiar to He really loved his steam a farewell of another kind, as Trafford Park men until 1968. engines. RIP Chappy. It was only weeks later part of Tiviot Many Vic staff joined Pete and good to know you, one of the Dale tunnel collapsed and the 91 past and present rail staff very best. line was never re-opened. So saw him retire in style. Mel Thorley , Retired Members’ Chappy and Sid were the very Peak Rail ran out of food – Section RALPH ZANELLOTTI COME DINE WITH ME

Our friend and colleague Brother famous for appearing on Come Ralph Zanellotti has left us far too Dine With Me – as Posh Train Driver early at the age of 43. Ralph started Ralph – and his amazing PA his railway career as a trainee driver announcements made passengers in March 2009, qualifying as a laugh. Captain Ralph would driver at Selhurst depot on 16 April announce that ‘We are cruising at 2010. He decided to move to 90mph at an altitude of 6 feet, so Gatwick Express, joining on 13 sit back and relax and let the train January 2014, and rising to driver take the strain. Gatwick Express! instructor. Ralph was a regular Why settle for anything less?’ attendee at Battersea branch, often Ralph, everyone at Gatwick asking off the wall questions! He Express and Southern will miss could always brighten your day you. RIP. with a smile and joke. He was Nick Warner , Gatwick Express ‘Posh train driver’ Ralph was a real culinary hit on Come Dine With Me

JOHNNIE WARWICK TRAVELLED THE WORLD it is with immense sadness that i have to report the sudden passing of retired Marylebone driver and branch member Brother Johnnie Warwick in September at the age of 69. John joined ASlEF in April 1967, starting out in his railway career at Cricklewood, initially as a cleaner, then becoming a second man and transferring to Marylebone in 1976. on retirement in the summer of 2013 he was the most senior driver at Marylebone and all through his time on the railway he was a loyal and wholehearted supporter of ASlEF. John travelled the world, especially to Australia to see his family and watch cricket, and back home was a keen supporter of Swindon town. he loved any excuse to meet friends over a pint or two. Sadly, due to the current situation, only limited members were able to attend his funeral but, once it is again possible, a pint (or two) will be raised by colleagues in his memory at our next depot social event. Robins fan ‘Johnnie outside an Matthew Byatt , assistant secretary, Marylebone 132 branch appropriate establishment’

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 19 letters

about rebuilding working-class institutions, so this union, fought and defeated the anti- Join the conversation! Send members have the support, the knowledge, Semitic, racist, homophobic, white and the confidence to be active politically at all supremacist Nazi regime of Germany. I believe your letters by email to levels of society. these people, who fought against the Nazis [email protected] or by What will become of our own cohort of and what they stood for, are a true Royal Mail to the ASLEF ULRs? As government funding is withdrawn, representation of what makes Britain great, we must not allow them to drift away from not the narrow hate of white supremacy we Journal at 77 St John Street, union activity. How about re-orientating them are seeing spewed out in some letters in the Clerkenwell, towards being branch education officers? I ASLEF Journal . London, hope ASLEF will be to the fore, within the TUC, For those who ask where is my white pushing for a return to the kind of trade union heterosexual male committee, every general EC1M 4NN education that helped produce generations of secretary, every district officer, every executive miners, dockers, train drivers, etc, who went on committee member and the vast majority of to become giants of our labour movement and branch secs and chairs of this union, since its Tory axe harsh but we are improved the lives of their members, and the founding in 1880, have been, and are, white working-class generally, and were such a heterosexual males. So dry your eyes. I believe free of deal with the devil threat to the establishment. ASLEF won a legal precedent to remove far- It is sad but certainly no surprise to see the Robert O’Connell , chair, Northern Line right extremists from our union; maybe that Tories scrapping the Union Learning Fund North branch 067 should be revisited by the EC now. from March. ULRs have helped members Hugh S Cumming , driver LNER, Edinburgh access life-changing opportunities and its No 2 branch withdrawal is just the start of a barrage of Tired of right-wing hate attacks we can expect from this government. The ongoing debate about opposition to That said, the trade union movement must equality and the defence of white supremacy The joke is on who exactly try and turn this negative into a positive. We is perhaps one of the worst debates I have ever Having just read the December issue of the are still a huge and well-resourced movement. seen within a trade union and the labour Journal , and the five pages relating to the We now have a responsibility to use a fraction movement. To read Paul Amer’s letter ( Journal , equality groups in ASLEF, I must put pen to of those resources to fund the kind of trade August) with its list of what Black Lives Matter paper. I do not have a problem with any type union education we used to do. The downside stands against, which explicitly included of equality, but what I do have a problem with to the Union Learning Fund was that destroying white supremacy, had me pretty is that when asked by Brother Ross Bland to accepting government funding meant that amazed. That he opposes the destruction of stop taking the piss when referring to disabled there was a kind of ‘deal with the devil’. The white supremacy, as far as I can make out, is a members, which I wholeheartedly support, government called the shots and, to an extent, clear statement that he supports white why does GS Mick Whelan and James marketised trade union education. We moved supremacy. Never did I think I would see a Sutherland of the Young Members’ Committee away from teaching members about politics, letter calling for the defence of white find it alright to take the piss out of me and my history, and economics, from a working-class supremacy in the Journal . And then Kester kind by stating that we are male, pale, and and trade unionist perspective, towards a Escandon ( Journal , December) reiterates the stale? If I’m expected to toe the union line by skills-based education. Trade union education trope that he speaks for the silent majority; not being discriminatory against any group of became, in part, about improving people’s how he judges that when extremely few people then I expect Mick and James to do skills, so they could better sell themselves in people in the country vote for far-right racist exactly the same! They may have meant it as a the ‘employment market’. There is a place for and extremist political parties, I don’t know. joke, but how many times have we heard that that, and I’m not belittling it, but that should Like Paul Amer, I am an Edinburgh driver for said when our members are being disciplined not be the sum total of trade union education. LNER, in Edinburgh No 2 branch, and it’s my by TOCs and FOCs? Discrimination in the Trade union education must also give experience that the majority of both of these workplace should not be encountered by people the knowledge and confidence to groups are not far-right white supremacists. It’s anyone, nor should any one group be given analyse and change the world in which we also my experience that, when we see the preferential treatment. We are all equal. live. Too many of our members are captivated support for Capt Tom, Remembrance Day, and Andy Haywood , Nottingham LLC member by right-wing arguments or lost to YouTube Armed Forces’ Day, that the vast majority of video conspiracies because they do not have people in the UK are not white supremacists, Star shines in the morning the tools to analyse what is happening around either. Like Capt Tom, my father and uncles, them. Trade union education must also be like the relatives of a great many members of I would like to thank ASLEF for encouraging branches to subscribe to the Morning Star (circular 570/2020). I started to read this paper when I was 15 in 1980. It is socialism in its purest form and I believe it is right for ASLEF, as a trade union, to support it. The left must organise and unite effectively for the fight to come and this paper is our voice. The Trade Union Act (2016) was designed to weaken our movement. The UK has some of the most restrictive laws in Europe on the right of trade unions to take industrial action but we must be ready and united. As a footnote, as a pale male, anyone who’s ever met me knows I will never be stale. I am fully with ASLEF in its support for equality for all and, yes, ASLEF should be involved in politics. I suggest anyone who doesn’t agree should read the history of the trade union and friendly society movement in the UK in the 1800s. At one time

20 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 Classifieds

KEYWORKER badge to recognise the hard work of all railway and What is ASlEF about? it’s about looking out for other keyworkers this year. £5 plus £1 p&p from Fiona Lumsden (MTR each other and righting wrongs in the workplace Elizabeth line and Paddington branch). Please email [email protected] ‘ASlEF is about looking insulted that, by make me, me. DARLINGTON 125th out for one another and disagreeing with the if you continue to anniversary badge 1895-2020. correcting wrongs in the words used would make define people by a narrow All badges individually workplace’ is a quote, me ‘fragile’, is a nice touch set of tick boxes you will numbered. £6.50 inc p&p. from James Sutherland, of gaslighting but reflects continue to only see Please contact branch secretary as to why he joined the more negatively on James people as a narrow set of John Clark by email at [email protected] union and is a committee and the committee he tick boxes. Whether it was FINAL RUN by Gareth member. it was, therefore, represents than on James’ intention or not Tomkins. Painting in somewhat surprising to anyone who shares a (and i am inclined to think acrylics to mark the last see the way James different view or may feel it was because of the run of the HST on described some of his insulted. presumptive response western region. High fellow members and i volunteer in the letter) when you refer to quality giclée prints using archival inks on fine art peers in his article community and part of us as ‘Plod’ – a term paper available at £50 plus p&p. Unframed. Overall size 20x16in; image size 18x14in with (Journal , december) and that involves mentoring widely accepted as 1in white border. Delivered in strong cardboard then tried to dress up his young people, often from condescending – that’s tube. To order email me at [email protected]. comments ( Journal , adverse backgrounds. i what you are doing. Payment accepted via PayPal. January) as a bit of mention this only i wholeheartedly agree humour and as factual. he because it has involved with James when he says NORWOOD depot special pin badges knows full well that what helping such people gain ASlEF is about looking including Cowden 25th anniversary. he wrote was vexatious, successful jobs in the out for one another and i £3 each or £5 the pair (inc p&p). which is why he had the railway and public sector respect his right to Proceeds to Norwood Drivers’ Social Club. Email Stuart Boxall at foresight to write a – making a tangible express the views the way [email protected] presumptive response, to difference to improve he has – i’m just saying i counter why some may some of those stats James don’t agree with the THE KING’S CROSS STORY take issue. thinks reflects poorly on language he used. by Peter Darley (The History the change – that is us. thankfully, the toC that Press, £20) as featured on the rightly being sought – can i am, proudly, a former has employed me looked centre pages of the January only be achieved if you Police Constable of 16 at my previous skills and Journal . Buy it direct from the take people on the years – and i am, proudly, experience as more than Camden Railway Heritage Trust at a discounted price of £15 inc p&p; email [email protected] or journey with you. Using now a trainee driver. it is just being a Plod and that phone 020 7586 6632 for details. ‘All income from derisory and an extremely great my diversity extended sales goes to the trust,’ says Peter. inflammatory phrases, in privilege to be here but beyond the standard tick my view, is disingenuous that privilege was hard- boxes. GROVE PARK branch 50th to any messages you put earned and came with locally, i’m very anniversary badge. £6.50 inc p&p. Contact branch secretary Ray Garland out about power being in sacrifices. it’s not thankful for the way i 07931 612615 or [email protected] our diversity. diversity something i take for have been welcomed and extends far beyond what granted but it’s also not looked after at my depot HANDMADE miniature driver’s the eye can see. something i am going to – and put on record that i keys to wear as a charm or round i am not angry at the let my representative think that ASlEF is an the neck. Solid silver and solid 9ct comments nor am i body mug away as being exceptional organisation gold weighing approximately 7 grams. Just over ‘outraged’ – but i am insignificant. or my that has responded well 2cm in length and just under 2cm width. Gold disappointed by the presence here is to the challenges faced £300, silver £100 + £7 p&p recorded delivery. Contact Brad McCarthy on 07929 350146. choice of language by somewhat diminished, last year. James in what, otherwise, based on my former here’s hoping 2021 AIRDRIE has produced a badge to could have been a very career, or by will be a better year for us commemorate its reopening as a articulate and important characteristics, which i all! separate branch. £6.50 inc p&p. Please article. to be further cannot change, which Mark Walsh, Fratton contact branch chair Ivan Wilson (07949 862393) for details.

CASH paid for original pre 90s there were more than 10,000 people in British and comforting with each other when we railway photographic slides or negatives. Please contact GBRf prisons for trade union membership. Without needed to be. As a train driver, knowing that Tonbridge driver (and railwayana collector) John your mates have your back is reassuring, to say unity we are weak. Waddington at [email protected] Brother Andy Sheehan the least. I would like to thank the ASLEF reps, and also the reps from the RMT, for their PERTH branch badge to support over the years. I guess all that’s left for commemorate 110 years (1908- Your mates have your back me to say is that I wish each and every one of 2018). £6 plus £1 p&p. Cheques I’m writing to the Journal for the first time, in them the best possible life in the future, and I payable to Perth branch ASLEF No the hope that you can convey my thanks to hope you will always look after each other. 134 General. Please contact branch everyone that I’ve been lucky enough to have Thanks again for everything. PS: keep the secretary Grant Murchie for details on 07412 453454 or [email protected] worked with for the best part of 30 years. The guard on the train for they can be a driver’s men and women at Glasgow Queen Street best friend in unfortunate situations. We are all To place an advertisement please phone have been more than just work colleagues; we train crew. 020 7324 2400 or send an email to have laughed most of the time, but been solid Bernard Connolly , Glasgow Queen Street [email protected]

February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 21 letters

Rail fare rises won’t help bring our passengers back Nobody will charm you so glibly, or act more bravely Inflation-busting rail fare increases, to be i noted, with sadness, the passing, on 12 december, at introduced next month, aren’t going to help the age of 89, of John le Carré, whose obituaries bring passengers back to trains. This increase reminded us about his mole-catcher, george Smiley. in comes when people are deciding whether to le Carré’s novel The Secret Pilgrim , published in 1990, go back to work five days a week. Indeed, Smiley issues a wonderful speech about great Britain’s there’s a risk it will result in even lower revenue post-imperial upper-class: for the government, by pricing people off the ‘the privately-educated Englishman is the greatest railways. dissembler on Earth... was, is now, and ever shall be, for The delay in implementing flexi-seasons as long as our disgraceful school system remains intact. will also reduce rail revenue. They are needed Nobody will charm you so glibly, disguise his feelings in March when people will be deciding how from you better, cover his tracks more skilfully, or find it many days per week to go to the office. harder to confess to you that he’s been a damned fool. Passengers will vote with their feet and Nobody acts braver when he’s frightened stiff, or revenue will be less as they travel, say, three happier when he’s miserable; nobody can flatter you days per week with ordinary tickets instead of better when he hates you than your extrovert four with a flexi-season. Englishman or woman.’ The government continues to impose fare Reading this again makes me smile, and takes me rises, using RPI instead of CPI, meaning that back 60 years. in June 1958, i passed the entrance exam david Cornwell in Cornwall fares have become less and less affordable to obtain a free place at fee-paying Stockport grammar over the years. To use RPI+1% is outrageous School, founded in 1487. And so, in September, i began six years of attempted and completely unjustified. Things aren’t indoctrination at ‘prunes and custard castle’ (the blazer). to say the average going to get back to near normal until June, at conversation with a son of gentlefolk differed greatly from a laugh with a bus the earliest, so a 2.6% increase won’t generate driver’s lad at Adswood primary would be an understatement. much cash when there are so few passengers Prior to the general election of october 1959, our form held a mock election in travelling. It will just annoy the very people the class. out of 30, only Bob Wainwright (another free place) and me voted labour, as industry needs to be cultivating. the school shirts of the other 28 all bore traces of their mothers’ blue rinses. i could Meanwhile, fuel duty for motorists remains not understand how a 12-year-old boy could rant about how the hang ’em and flog frozen, as it has been for ten years now. Rail ’em home Secretary Rab Butler would be a better PM than the one Nation tory staff may bear the brunt of this as they are harold MacMillan. But then Bob and me were more concerned that denis law might already seen to be government-supported be going from huddersfield town to liverpool instead of City or United! when ordinary passengers are losing their Melvin Frank Thorley , Old Stopfordian, 1964, possibly the only ASLEF member jobs. the school has produced Chris Page , chair, Railfuture

The situation is desperate human rights, are ‘normalising’ their that will allow the Journal to remain the the struggle relations with israel, encouraging it in its oldest continuously published trade union for the rights crimes against humanity. PSC will continue publication in the world, supporting print, of the its fight for justice for Palestinians. that is post, and online for those who want it.’ Palestinians why, as a patron, i am writing to you now. is one of the We must ensure PSC has the resources to Getting the news by email great causes continue its campaign to reach trades unions, universities, all such institutions, I received the Journal and saw that it is of our time. possible to switch for an e-magazine instead of the theft of their land, destruction of their and people of goodwill. After all the injustice that Palestinians the printed version. I would prefer to receive it homes, collective punishment of the people via email in the future, if possible. Do I need to of gaza, transportation of their children, have suffered, there is now an attempt to silence their voices. this is an urgent ca ll to fill in a form for that? military occupation, and the permanent István Rádi disruption of daily life – all this shames the please give what you can, however small, to world. help PSC in its essential work to demand justice and freedom for Palestine. to sign up to receive the digital Journal , just israel disregards international law, the follow this link to the relevant part of our geneva conventions, and human rights, Ken Loach , patron, Palestine Solidarity Campaign website: https://www.aslef.org.uk/ with impunity. When politicians refuse to locomotive-journal.html act, civil society must accept the responsibility. that is why i support those Can we go bio-degradable? in the second paragraph of text, you will who campaign for justice for Palestine and Why is the monthly ASLEF Journal still being see ‘Click here to subscribe’ (highlighted why i am honoured to be a patron of PSC. delivered in a plastic cover that has to go text). Click and enter the information Now the situation is even more straight in the bin, and can’t be recycled? required. You will need your membership desperate. israel is continuing its formal Other publications have gone to either bio- number to complete the process. You will annexation of stolen Palestinian land and degradable coverings, which I believe are also find the current edition of the Journal reinforcing its system of apartheid. the plant-based, or a simple paper envelope. In at the above link, along with past issues. demolition of homes continues apace. this age of increasing single-use plastic, surely israel’s illegal siege of gaza has already an organisation like ASLEF can find a suitable devastated the lives of those who live there. alternative. it is now, inevitably, making the effects of Ian Burroughs Don't let it cost the pandemic even more intolerable. despite this brutal oppression some gS Mick Whelan says: ‘We continually you your job! Arab regimes, themselves no supporters of review, with our printer, the best options  22 The ASLEF Journal l February 2021 Across down Prize Crossword 1 Mixed-breed dog 1 Business with total on track 5 Domesticated market control Prize crossword 178 by tom Williams 7 To badger 2 A drink before bed continually 3 Pungent red 8 In disfavour or salad plant the kennel? 4 A gift left by will So where are 9 Roads and tracks 5 Gardener’s hand 10 Munch gum tool those sunny 13 Decorative fabric 6 Fine spray of liquid made in Nottingham 11 River or canal 14 Tilt to one side 12 Private and off the uplands, BJ? 18 Choose beaten track 19 Just the ticket 15 Quick and agile 21 Over-tanned 16 Kilts or tutus 22 A bundle of notes 17 Type of ale 23 Lose volume or 20 Cougar brightness 24 Wandered off and got lost Winston Churchill’s bucolic dream of Solution to Prize Crossword 177 Britain’s post-war sunlit uplands Across: 1 Walrus 4 Awful 7 Loganberry 8 Duet Name...... 9 Molar 11 Mustard 13 Destroy 15 Denim REXIT divided this United 17 Snip 18 Anticlimax 20 Newts 21 Tangle Kingdom as bitterly as Address...... down: 1 Wisdom 2 Root 3 Seabird 4 Album B nothing since the Civil War 5 For 6 Layer 7 Lesson 10 Larynx 12 Dentist between Parliament and Charles I in 14 Yippee 15 Drain 16 Mocks 17 Sawn 19 Tow ...... the middle of the 17th century. It set husband against wife, father against Congratulations to Mick Barstow of ...... son, workmate against workmate, langford , Biggleswade , and neighbour against neighbour. As Bedfordshire , who was last well as exposing fissures between the ...... month’s winner. The winner of this young and the old, widening month’s Prize Crossword will receive divisions between north and south, Marks & Spencer vouchers to the value ...... and exacerbating differences of £25. between Scotland and England. l You can see more of Tom Williams’s Postcode...... Boris Johnson famously claimed to crosswords, word games and puzzles at have an ‘oven-ready’ deal – he didn’t – wordgames.co.uk and said Britain, post-Brexit, would move on to the ‘sunlit uplands’. A If you successfully complete this month’s Prize Crossword please send the solution by post to the phrase he nicked from Winston Editor, ASLEF Journal , 77 St John Street, Clerkenwell, London, EC1M 4NN (or take a photo on your Churchill. Ironic, really, as Churchill mobile phone of the grid and send the image to [email protected]) by Friday 12 February was speaking of a Europe standing tall and together, arguing that if the Nazis could be defeated, then ‘all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into ASLEF’s legal services broad, sunlit uplands.’ Sensible Brexiteers knew the best have you been sacked, or are in trouble at work, and cannot get hold of way to leave the EU was to copy your branch secretary, local representative or district organiser in an Norway – staying in the single market emergency? Call our industrial relations department on 020 7324 2400 but junking the ‘political union’ bit – (9am to 5pm Monday to thursday or 9am to 4pm on Friday) or leave a but Tory zealots treasured the message on the answer service, or email [email protected] with a subject delusion that Britain is still a world power, with a thriving economy, and heading of ‘For the attention of the other countries would trip over industrial relations dept’. themselves to trade with us. It hasn’t worked out like that, has it? Trade with our nearest neighbours has become more complicated, more Changed your address? Please let us know! Just fill in this form expensive, and more difficult. Grant Shapps has told ports such as Dover Name...... to turn a blind eye and wave through lorries – all loaded with goods, but Address...... some with illegal immigrants and the ...... coronavirus as well – as images of the M20 as a lorry park will make the Postcode ...... Telephone...... government look bad. But we shouldn’t worry. Nigel Farage says it’s Branch...... Membership No...... all going swimmingly…

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February 2021 l The ASLEF Journal 23