Working Class life in the 1940’s and 1950´s Britain ~ Train Travel

When I was growing up in the late forties early fifties one of the things that stand out in my memory is the old steam trains, of course they weren’t the old steam trains back then they were just trains. Like most working class people back then we didn’t own a car and the only means of transport my father ever owned was a bicycle, which he would use to cycle to work. Neither of my parents ever learned to drive, and my mum couldn’t even ride a bicycle.

As a child in the late forties early fifties most local journeys were made either on foot or on the local buses. Most working class people did not normally venture far from home and it was not unusual for many generations of the same family to live on the same street or in the same neighbourhood. Some children had never been out of the city they were born in until after they left school and some not even then.

It seems strange looking back now at how excited we got at the prospect of travelling sixty or seventy miles to the coast on holiday. It was not just that the physical distance seemed vast to a small child but the countryside we travelled through and the seaside resorts we went on holiday to were like another world. Gone were the grimy streets of back to back terraced housing of the city where everything seemed hemmed in, replaced by the much wider less densely populated streets of the much smaller coastal towns. Everywhere looked so much cleaner, so much fresher and for the most part there were hardly any industrial buildings with all the noise and pollution that goes with them. Back in those days Britain still had a thriving fishing industry and many of the coastal resorts still had fully functional ports and fishing fleets which provided a livelihood for its inhabitants.

It was a proud boast of my mums that we always had a two-week summer holiday away at the seaside. This holiday was planned for and looked forward to all year round, mum often working two jobs in order to save up the money to pay for this. Many working class families did not go away on a summer holiday because of the cost involved. It wasn’t until many years later when I had children of my own that I began to appreciate just what it cost my mum in terms of personal sacrifice to give us our two week annual seaside holiday.

When we went on our summer holidays to the coast, the train was always the preferred way of travel. Nottingham back then had two big railway stations, The Victoria Station and The Midland Station.

The huge building to the right of Victoria Station was the very grand looking Victoria Station Hotel. As far as I know this hotel is still standing but it is no longer owned by British Rail.

We always hoped for a corridor train as that meant we could wander up and down the length of the train which seemed to make the journey go much faster. The train journey became part of our holiday fun and if it had a corridor it also became our playground. However, we had to make sure that we didn’t make a nuisance of ourselves or make too much noise or the Ticket Inspector or the guard would quickly march us back to our parents and they would be told in no uncertain terms to keep us under control.

Back in those days there were two kinds of carriages one with a corridor and one without. If the train you caught had a corridor that connected the carriages to one another you would have access to a toilet and sometimes there would be a refreshment carriage as well where you could purchase cups of tea and snacks. If the train did not have a corridor then each compartment was entered by its own door and you were stuck in that compartment of the carriage until your journey’s end so you had to make sure that you had been to the toilet before you boarded the train. Each compartment had two doors so that the compartment could be entered from which ever side the platform was on when the train arrived.

If you had a corridor train you could look into the other carriages as you walked down the corridor. On the British railways of that time there were three classes of carriage first class, second class and third class. The difference between the classes was reflected in the price you paid for your ticket and the standard of the furnishing in the carriage.

The first class carriages, which I have never travelled in, usually had its seating done in a different colour from the second and third class carriages and the first class carriages always looked a lot plusher than that of the other class carriages. If I remember rightly, the first class compartments were always upholstered in blue, and the upholstery always looked a lot fresher.

It was also usual for most carriages to have some form of art print in a frame which was set above head height of the sitting passengers which was secured by a screw at each corner so that it could not be easily removed.

At holiday times special trains would be laid on each Saturday and the carriages would always be full to bursting, mainly because most working class people at that time did not own their own means of transport. Most working class people didn’t own a car, to own a car in the UK back then was still more of a middle and upper-class sort of thing.

There were exceptions of course, my friend’s dad who lived on our street had a car, it was the only one on our street, but that was most probably because he drove for a living he worked as a driver for Fyffe Bananas. The streets that we lived and played on very rarely had any cars parked on them. Often the streets were our playgrounds and it was not very often that a car interrupted our play.

Back then it was not unusual for a firm to close down for its annual holidays so all the workers took their holiday at the same time. If you wanted to go on holiday the journey for most working class people would be made either by train or coach. Skegness, Chapel St Leonards and Mablethorpe were the seaside towns most favoured by the working class people of Nottingham for their summer holidays as they were the closest seaside resorts to Nottingham.

I did not like travelling long distances in buses as a child as I would sometimes suffer from travel sickness. Remember back then the coaches did not have air-conditioning or toilets on board, and people were allowed to smoke, so travelling in the heat of summer on a coach where you had to sit still was not my idea of fun. For me the train was always my favourite way to go.

I remember the excitement as we arrived at the railway station, after getting our tickets checked, running ahead of my parents down the steps to the platform where there would be lots of other holiday makers waiting for the same train as us to arrive at the platform. Many would be sitting on their cases, we always arrived early, trains didn’t wait for you if you weren’t there when it was ready to depart then it would go without you. Dad would settle us down somewhere on the platform and we would sit on our cases then he would go and get a cup of tea for him and my mum.

I couldn’t find any footage of our local railway stations but this newsreel footage of August Bank Holiday 1949 has a piece featuring Victoria Station in London. At about 1minute 47seconds in you will see the reporter interviewing some holidaymakers. I hope this will give you a little insight at to what it was like for holidaymakers catching their holiday train.

The smell and the noise when at last the steam train pulled into the station was something quite different to sights and sounds the modern trains of today. The sounds of the couplings clinking and the engine hissing and chuffing as it waited patiently for the holiday makers to board have now pretty much disappeared to be replaced by the quieter modern trains. When everyone was on board the train would build up steam the whistle would blow and slowly the train would pull out of the station, building up speed as it went. Soon we would be speeding along through the countryside at last on our way, and within minutes we would be asking ‘are we nearly there yet?’ ‘How much longer is it to Boston?’ We knew that as soon as Boston Stump came into sight then we were not far from the seaside. My brother and I would always compete with each other, to see who could spot the Stump first.

On the train there were smoking and none smoking carriages, this ruling was strictly enforced, back then most people seemed to smoke so there was always a heavy demand for seats in the smoking carriages. We always travelled in the smoking carriages as when my brother and I were young both mum and dad smoked and the thought of going without a cigarette for two or three hours was not something that either of them wanted to contemplate. Back then the films and the advertising portrayed cigarettes as beneficial and the cool thing to do, even film stars that didn’t smoke in real life would take a puff in their films to look sophisticated and cool. My dad use to smoke Woodbines the Youtube video is a Woodbine advertisement from the 1950´s

This next video shows very much what my generation was exposed to by way of pro smoking propaganda.

The song that accompanies this footage is ‘You are so beautiful’ which matches perfectly the image that was being portrayed.

I digress lets get back to trains, of course you could tell immediately when you had entered a smoking carriage by the smell of stale cigarette smoke that permeated the carriage emanating out from the upholstery that had soaked up the smell like a sponge. Though when you are brought up in a smoking household it is surprising how little you notice this smell.

There was something magical about steam trains, though in reality they were often smelly and dirty, mostly from the smoke, when going through long tunnels you had to make sure that you had your windows closed or the compartment would soon fill with smoke from the engine. Even with the windows closed some of the smoke still managed to seep into the carriage, though I didn’t mind the smell myself I suppose mainly because I always associated this smell with going somewhere nice.

As the train sped along the rails there was a clickerty clack sort of rhythm and the carriage seemed to sway gently from side to side. This poem really captures the feel and rhythm of the steam train as it puffs out its smoke and steam as it thunders along.

This clickerty clack rhythm reminds me of a set of Sparky records I had as a child, I think there were four or six 78rpm records in the set and one of the stories was Sparky and the talking train.

I would play these records on an old wind up gramophone which gave a surprisingly good rendition of the record as long as you wound it up well before you started. Later I would play it on our new radiogram under supervision, I would play them over and over again. I never got tired of hearing these stories, in the set I think we also had Sparky and the Echo and Sparky and the magic piano. However, the talking train was always my favourite story.

When I listened to them on the radiogram I would sit on the floor with my head resting on the speakers situated in the front of the radiogram with my eyes closed tight. I would listen to radio programs in the same way, I know it may seem strange to young people today, but when my eyes were closed and the story was being told it was better than any TV program or film.

If you want a blast from the past this two part story of Sparky and the talking train has been posted on Youtube and I have put both parts below for you to listen to. I always thought as a child that I was special because I could hear the train talking too. Now, even after more than fifty years of not hearing this story, I can still hear in my mind that train saying "right front wheel, right front wheel" in that clickerty clack rhythm of the steam train speeding along its tracks.

When we finally got to our holiday destination, barrow boys and girls who made good money from carrying your luggage to your holiday accommodation for you would meet the trains and coaches. Their mode of transportation for your luggage was normally a home made conveyance made up from old pram wheels and bits of wood no two looked alike, some looked and worked better than others and some were easier to control. Most of the time the barrow boys and girls would not give you a fixed price they instead would say "I’ll leave it up to you, give me what you think it is worth".

This might sound a risky thing to do, but in the main especially at the beginning of the holiday when people had a bit of money in their pockets, they were generous and gave them more than they would have charged. There were of course those that were the exceptions but generally everyone involved was happy with this way of doing things.

Those were happy days, and just writing this hub has brought back many happy memories and for that alone it was well worth writing. I hope you have enjoyed this small peek into the bygone age of steam trains.

If you enjoyed this hub I have put links to some of my other hubs that deal with similar material below.

All these Hubs have the common theme of coming from a Working Class perspective which differs quite a lot from that of the Middle Class and which has virtually nothing in common with the Upper Class perspective.

• Working Class Life in the 1930's
• Working Class life in the 1950’s – Train Sets and Train Spotting
• Working Class life in the 1940’s and 1950´s Britain ~ Train Travel
• Working Class Life in the 1940s & 50s
• Working Class Life in the 1940’s
• A Victorian Woman of Substance
• Stay at Home Mom or Working Mom? The choice of a Working Class Mum
• Stay at Home Mom or Working Mom? The choice of a Working Class Mum part Two
• Stay at Home Mom or Working Mom? The choice of a Working Class Mum part three
• A 1950's Working Class Mum's Answer to Children Biting
• Working Class Girl in Singapore in the late 1960's
• Bonfire Night in a Working Class area in the 1950’s