“…My father chatting to the driver, who invariably appeared to have time to say a few words to a spell-bound small boy and let him have a keek in the roaring firebox on the footplate.”
Summer holidays have usually been wonderful times for kiddies, though for some wee ones, I expect, the realisation never quite matched the anticipation! Not for me though. I don’t remember ever being disappointed, even if my pre-holiday behaviour had been a bit over the top.
I could hardly wait for the trunks and cases to be packed and labelled, collected by Carter Paterson, delivered to the station and would always be at our destination before we ourselves arrived.
The holiday for me started with trunk packing. I’m quite sure it never struck my mother in the same way, what with all the washing, ironing and, probably, mending clothes — yours truly meanwhile being a thorough nuisance and getting in the way at every turn. Came eventually the journey across London to Euston in taxis (and the arguing as to who would sit on the little tip-up seats fastened to the back of the partition). We arrived at Euston to be met by waistcoated porters everywhere, with their two-wheeled trolleys, grabbing the hand baggage and showing everyone politely to their seats (they were always polite and helpful — their tips depended on it!). We always needed a couple of reserved compartments. The smoke and steam, the chocolate machines (I thought that they were magic), weighing machines, bookstalls, coffee, tea and sandwich wagons cruising up and down the platforms, all such a great hustle and bustle and excitement and checking of tickets, and grabbing cups of tea, wonderful!
Finally being taken to see the great crimson, pulsating monster of an engine. My father chatting to the driver, who invariably appeared to have time to say a few words to a spell-bound small boy and let him have a keek in the roaring firebox on the footplate. I think the drivers were shrewd judges and could tell which little boys were genuinely interested – they were always most kind to me and never gave the impression that I was a nuisance, and we never failed to thank the driver and the fireman at journey’s end. I just adored the sheer, almost animal power that seemed to emanate from the locomotive — a truly living, breathing, steel monster.
Then we would be back in the carriage arguing about the corner seats (not on the corridor side for me). The guards whistle would blow and the crimson giant would ease the lengthy train out of the station, up the steep incline to Camden, and with gradually increasing “chonk-chonk-chonks” we were under way, and for the next few hundred miles I was in seventh heaven. Trying to read the names of the stations as they flashed by and recall the next one in the sequence north, helped to keep me occupied. Hemel Hempstead, Tring, Rugby, Stafford, Crewe and Carlisle, then shouting up through the blue, border hills on to Ecclefechan, Beattock, Wishaw and Glasgow. On to Gleneagles where we would change trains on to the local to Crieff, to be welcomed by Auntie Polly, Uncle George and Cousin Margaret.
I just loved Crieff and being taken to play in McCrosty Park, paddling in the river Earn and picnics in Lady Mary’s Walk which ran alongside the Earn. (I have been back 65 years on, and apart from the fact that the railway to Comrie is no more, the changes have had very little effect on the river).
Mention of Crieff reminds me of the time when we started the journey home from there one evening, and whilst waiting at Gleneagles station for our express, I watched in utter fascination as the double-headed train came in with the red glow from the fireboxes reflecting on the clouds of smoke and steam, hearing the hissing and squealing of the brakes as the long train glided to a halt. Getting to our seats and being allowed to look out of the lowered window to watch the engines as they started away – the glow from the fires becoming brighter with every succeeding “chonk”. What a magic sight it was for me, who had never seen an express train drawn by two engines at night-time. A wonderful moment.
The trips to St Fillans, Lochearnhead, Balquidder (with the wee ruined church) and Rob Roy’s grave etc. were all made by taxi — we did not run a car in those days, God knows what it must have cost my father, although I suppose country taxi owners were glad enough to have the custom, and would presumably come up with special rates for all-day hiring.
About this time the annual Crieff Highland Games would require attendance, and yet another pleasurable experience with piping and dancing, caber tossing, hammer throwing, shot putting and heaving great weights over high bars that looked like pole-vaulting jumps. There were fortune-tellers, hoopla stalls, shooting booths, cocoa-nut shies and all the usual paraphenalia of the fairground.