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On the Railway, MEMORIES OF MY FIRST JOB Pt 1

On leaving school in 1958 I obtained employment as a clerk on the North Eastern Region of British Railways at a salary of 203 pounds per annum. At that time British Railways employed around 575,000 people and had 5410 stations. Dr Richard Beeching had not yet been asked to produce his controversial report 'The Re-shaping of British Railways'. Railways were then still being run as a public service rather than as a commercially profitable undertaking. The Fifties Modernisation Plan was well under way and steam locomotion was rapidly being replaced by diesel power. I had attended an interview at the old North Eastern Railway headquarters in York, which had become British Railways HQ for the North Eastern Region. Given a free railway travel pass I arrived one morning for my interview, which took place in the very imposing former North Eastern Railway boardroom. There were large pictures of old NER Directors around the walls and with a big table, at one side of which sat the three middle-aged men who were to interview me. I sat opposite and the interview began. I was asked some routine questions about school and what I did in my spare time, told a little about railway employment and after about ten minutes the interview was over and I was informed that I would hear the result in due course. Just a few weeks later I had a letter telling me when and where to start work and so I saw my headmaster and asked if it was possible to leave school in the middle of a term and shortly afterwards my life as a railway clerk began.

In 1958 there were still many rural lines in existence and the Alnmouth to Alnwick, the Monkseaton to Blyth, Ashington and Newbiggin, the Haltwhistle to Alston, the Sunderland to Durham, Bishop Auckland, Barnard Castle and the Darlington to Barnard Castle and Middleton in Teesdale branches all had passenger services. There were goods stations on the Consett (via both Rowlands Gill and Stanley) lines. There were also goods services on the Alnwick to Wooler and Coldstream, the Chevington to Amble, and the Hexham to Redesmouth, Bellingham, Scotsgap, Rothbury and Morpeth, routes. Large numbers of colliery railways existed and various industries had their own sidings. From Newcastle Central main line trains ran to the same destinations they do now but also with a daily train to Colchester (a throwback from the war years), to Cardiff, and, in summer, to popular West Country holiday destinations, also to Blackpool via Barnard Castle and across Stainmore summit and Tebay. The boat trains from Kings Cross still ran to the Tyne Commission quay from London, reversing at Percy Main to reach the riverside where they connected with the Norwegian steamers. So there was still a very comprehensive and busy railway network.

I was initially sent to Wylam for training in passenger station work and accounts This station was generally used to train new clerks and as there was another station, North Wylam, across the road bridge over the Tyne we covered both stations. At midday we would walk over the bridge, sell tickets to any North Wylam passengers, and do the accounts. The rest of the day the porter sold the tickets. North Wylam station was nearer the village and thus handier for passengers, but as fewer trains ran on this line the other station was far busier. North Wylam was reached by a line which diverged from the main Newcastle to Carlisle line at Scotswood, and ran through Lemington, Newburn and Heddon on the Wall, (though these last 3 stations closed soon after I left Wylam.), and on via North Wylam over the arched bridge (the Point Bridge at Hagg Bank), to West Wylam junction where it re-joined the main line. near the colliery. The main line ran from Newcastle through Elswick, crossed the river at Scotswood, and ran through Blaydon and Ryton to reach Wylam. There was a considerable commuter traffic to Newcastle from Wylam and on Wednesday's only there was a 'hospital train' which ran from Newcastle to Wylam only, bringing visitors to the RVI Convalescent Home, which had a convenient linking flight of stairs from the end of the platform directly to the hospital.

I travelled to work from home on the bus to Blaydon and thence to Wylam by train and was given a free pass for this journey during my time there, with other passes being issued for travel to other stations I worked at. I learned about the various types of tickets, how to deal with parcels, and was shown how to do daily accounts, or balances, and how to find my way around the various books of instructions of which there were several. One large book gave details of every station, passenger and goods, in Britain, including every siding to colliery, factory, dock or other commercial premises, and there were regular amendments to be done. In the afternoon the days takings would be put into a leather bag, which was sealed with sealing wax, and with the station stamp embossed on the hot wax (done with a lighted taper) was then sent by train to the bank at Blaydon. When anything of value or importance was sent by train on railway business it was known as a value, and a book had to be signed by the guard on handing over into his keeping at each stage of its journey. Meals at Wylam were taken in a little cabin near the station entrance used by the track workers, or gangers and the vanman who delivered parcels sent by rail would come too and there would be discussions about this and that aspect of railway work and gossip which was sometimes quite heated.

While at Wylam I sometimes visited the tall signal box spanning the tracks and was allowed to try pulling off the yellow distant signal situated some considerable distance up the line towards West Wylam, which meant puling not only the weight of the signal but also a considerable length of wire between it and the signal cabin There was a knack to it, success not merely being due to brute force. There were level crossing gates too and they were controlled by means of a wheel not unlike a wheel used to steer a ship. All the signals, and points were interlocked so that the signalman could not set the signals to show line clear if the points were set incorrectly. There were some goods sidings at the station and a pick-up goods train called regularly to collect any goods wagons there. The signalman communicated with his colleagues at the signal boxes on each side of his own box by means of the block instruments and used a system of bell codes to keep the other signalmen advised of the passage of trains through the section of line he controlled. This was done in conjunction with the block instruments which looked something like large clocks but instead of figures had three panels to which the single pointer moved, either right or left. The block instrument pointer initially showed line blocked (no trains in the section), then line clear (when clear to accept a train from the previous signal box), then train on line (when the train has entered the section and back to line blocked (when the train has left the section) and so the train was passed safely down the line from one signal box to another. Only one train on a section controlled by a signal box at any one time was allowed. A couple of years later I was to take a course in the theory of signalling at evening classes but with no practical, hands-on signal box experience, theory only.

After about eight weeks training I was sent as holiday relief to Riding Mill for two weeks and then to Rowlands Gill for a week (that station having lost its passenger service in 1953 but retained a freight and parcels service until 1962), before being moved to the District Passenger Superintendent's office at Newcastle Central, off Platform 14, where I was placed in the Accounts Department. Here all the accounts/statistics were collated from stations in the Newcastle area, which was bounded by Wetheral in the west, Berwick to the north, and Ferryhill and Blackhall Colliery to the south. The other north-eastern areas were controlled from Middlesbrough, Leeds, Hull and York.

The Accounts Section also dealt with fare dodging and Ticket Collectors referred details of people caught travelling without tickets both at the barrier and on the trains to us for a decision on whether to prosecute. Usually a letter was sent to the offender first in an attempt to collect the fare. There were some pitiful stories about lost tickets, and sometimes they were true. Occasionally the culprit would turn up in person to plead their case. One man who regularly and genuinely lost his ticket even suggested that he be issued with a special letter to produce to ticket collectors whenever he lost his ticket, but as it was considered likely that he would lose this letter too, his suggestion was not taken up. Sometimes a prosecution was made but this was expensive and time consuming so was only done as a last resort in the more blatant cases or where the fare lost to the railway was substantial. Refunds on unused tickets were-also made, albeit with a small handling charge, about which some passengers were highly indignant. All stations sent in weekly returns on passenger and parcel numbers and money receipts, and a much more detailed monthly return was made. These were used to give an indication of the current usage and financial state of each line. There were separate accounts made by the District Goods Superintendent's Office situated at Irving House near the Literary and Philosophical Society in Westgate Road, and each area's statistics would go to North Eastern Regional Headquarters at York.

Written requests for train times were also dealt with and of course replies to these had to be absolutely spot on as the passenger had written proof of the information given, in the event a mistake was made. I learnt about the intricacies of railway timetables- and their numerous amendments and the various trunk routes on Britains rail network, together with it's cross country and branch lines, steamer services to Ireland and the Continent and the many summer- only services for holiday-makers. Sometimes I was sent to the Post Office in Pink Lane for postage stamps, several hundred at a time. There was also an office dealing with party travel and excursions, of which there were a lot in the summer, as the large numbers of carriages lying idle in the sidings during the winter months testified. There were popular trips from Tyneside to the races at York, Carlisle, Thirsk and Redcar and to places like Knaresborough, Bellingham Show, the Lake District, Scarborough and the Motor Show at Earls Court. Football excursions were also run of course, and summer evening tours of stations to view the colourful station gardens on the Newcastle - Hex ham line, returning via Redesdale, Scotsgap and Morpeth.were quite popular. The withdrawal of staff at the smaller stations and branch closures eventually put paid to this.

There were social events for the staff too. Near Christmas there was the Annual Ball, held at the Old Assembly Rooms in Newcastle and all the senior managers and their wives attended. In the early summer there was a midweek staff rail excursion to Keswick, half the staff going one week and the other half the next. Diesel Multiple Units (DMU's) had recently been introduced on the Newcastle, Hexham, Carlisle line and we used these trains, which of course were then still very new. Steam hauled trains still handled some of the Newcastle to Carlisle traffic, but the Hexham trains were all DMUs. British Railway's Staff Association (BRSA) provided sport and leisure facilities for all employees and there was a small membership payment deducted from pay. Down Forth Lane at the side of the Central Station near Marlborough Crescent there was a BRSA club and you could play snooker or have a drink. My hours were 8.30 to 5.30 with an hour for lunch and I usually travelled home from Newcastle to Blaydon on the 5.20pm Carlisle train, being allowed to leave 10 minutes early. This train called at Elswick where a number of workers from the huge Scotswood Road Vickers factories situated nearby boarded. It was while at Central Station that I joined the appropriate Trade Union for my grade, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, then led by the formidable Ray Gunter who was then very active in Labour Party affairs.

There were two booking offices. I began at Manors East on platform 8, reached by a precipitous climb up several flights of stairs from the City Road or via other stairs, a lane and a pedestrian tunnel from Carliol Square. Platform 9 also had a long flight of stairs down to City Road and half way down a subway connected with the tunnel from Carliol Square allowing passengers to get to that part of town without having to go down to City Road level and then climb back up from there. The station was thus a very large and complicated one with tunnels and stairs everywhere and everything fitted neatly into a cramped site restricted by other buildings and roads. A long footbridge connected Platform One with Platform Nine with steps leading off at intervals to all the intermediate platforms. The Manors East office opened from 5.50am to 7.50pm and saw a brief period of activity in early morning from shipyard workers using the coast via Wallsend or via the Riverside lines. Midday saw another active period and again at 5pm when several workers in the New Bridge Street area of the city used the Manors East entrance in returning home. The clerk was also responsible for collecting the many tickets from the very many passengers alighting from trains on platform 8 in the morning rush hour. Twice a month, on days notified only to the staff, every season ticket was subject to a special check and this always slowed up the queue of passengers exiting the barrier as many held weekly and monthly season tickets from the Coast. Only very occasionally would you find an out of date ticket.

The ticket office was about eight feet long by six with drawers around three sides, a stool and a chair being the only furniture and so was very cramped. There was a till drawer under the ticket window and racks on which the tickets were held. and a ticket stamping machine. Heating was by means of an electric fire. The office was positioned so as to form part of the barrier so that passengers had to pass between the office and the iron railings to enter or exit the station. The only other local examples of this system were at Darlington and Berwick. Normally there would be a sliding gate type barrier controlled by a ticket collector entirely separate from the booking office, as at Manors North. All the collected tickets were retained, bundled up and sent to the Revenue Accountant's office at the west of the Central Station. To fill in the gaps between the busy periods, the Manors East clerks, one per shift, had to do clerical work in connection with coal traffic sent by goods train and this was a particularly boring task and involved making carbon copies of weighbills and adding up the weights of each consignment of coal in tons and hundredweights, carrying the total forward to the next page. There were also the balances to be done on each 7 hour, 6 day a week shift and the monthly accounts to be done at the months end and replacement tickets had to be ordered from time to time.

I travelled to work on the early shift by bike, which took 40 minutes or so from Swalwell and involved riding back through Newcastle city centre during the busy midday period. I found out that I could improve on this by riding to Blaydon locomotive sheds on Chain Bridge Road leaving the bike there, and catching an early empty train into Newcastle Central at 5.15am, walking to Manors from there. Or if I was lucky I just caught the first train to Newbiggin from the Central which got me to work about 5.35am. But coming back I had a long walk from Blaydon station to the Loco sheds before riding home and I could not use this method on the late shift so I just used the bus. One frosty winter morning at the sheds I climbed up from the track expecting to find the guards van door unlocked as usual but I couldn't open it. The train suddenly moved off and, clinging to the outside, I had visions of a nightmare journey in the cold to Newcastle nearly four miles away. Fortunately as the train reached the end of the shed sidings it stopped at the signal controlling access to the main line and I was able to climb down. I was late for work that day but was given a carriage key by one of the ticket collectors at Manors who had been a guard, so I could open any doors in future. Another morning when my bike had some fault I had to walk to Blaydon and the shortest route was via the railway line from Swalwell, so, clambering up the embankment at the bottom of Whickham Bank, I walked along the line past Swalwell cricket ground and over the Derwent bridge and on towards Blaydon. There were no trains that early in the morning so I just walked along the tracks. I began to run in order to get to the sheds on time and in the pitch dark could see very little when I suddenly tripped over a signal wire and fell full length cutting my hands on the ballast between the tracks. However in spite of this I still managed to catch the train. Later on I bought a motorbike and this was much quicker but no fun in bad weather. Returning home on the Triumph after midnight during my time at Manors North, people would occasionally thumb lifts, and once I took someone who had missed the last train home back to Whitley Bay.

After 7 or 8 months at Manors East office, I was transferred to the main booking office at Manors North, adjacent to Platform 1 at the station's main entrance on Trafalgar Street. The station frontage was quite impressive, with a large clock tower dominating the station buildings. The office was very much busier and in addition to selling tickets handled parcels and calculated and paid out the clerical staff's weekly pay, together with the wages of all the other station staff including the signalmen at the Argyll Street, Manors North and Jesmond signal boxes which were under the command of the Station Master at Manors. Payday was on a Thursday. As Manors North was quite near Worswick Street bus station we had the custom of many passengers arriving by bus from south and east Durham, especially on fine summer days when families went to the beach for the day at Tynemouth, Cullercoats or Whitley Bay. On really busy days we would open an additional ticket window with a clerk at each to deal with the long queues that built up from about 10am, and Messrs Findlays kiosk which sold cigarettes and confectionery and WH Smiths newsagents would do extra business on these days too.

Several local firms sent parcels almost daily, often to coast stations, where they would be put on the next train and the sender would advise the addressee by phone to collect them. Parcel rates were calculated by weight and distance on a sliding scale and could be quite expensive if heavy. Incoming parcels occasionally contained live bait from Wells Next the Sea in Norfolk; a long way to send for your fishing bait. Sometimes more substantial livestock parcels arrived containing day old chicks and once a pigeon in a cardboard box came with some holes punched in the top. There were often large baskets of racing pigeons on the platforms being sent south for liberation, or returned empty for collection afterwards, a common sight at stations in those days. As the railway in those days was designated a common carrier and was obliged by law to carry virtually any traffic offered it, the rules governing the conveyance of parcels by passenger train were very complicated and amendments to the rules were received weekly and the rule books had to be kept up to date. Although most parcels were relatively straightforward you never knew what you were going to get and it was usually at the most inconvenient time when the most unusual parcel with complicated conditions attached to it would be handed in. All charges had to be calculated before despatch. Some firms had an account with British Railways, while others paid cash. You could also send your luggage in advance, either bringing/collecting it yourself or having it picked up/delivered or any combination you chose and this cost a few shillings.

There were also of course personal and telephone enquiries requiring use of the timetables of which there were six - one for each of the BR regions. We sold these to the public as required together with a railway publication called Holiday Haunts which gave information on attractions at various resorts with details of accommodation. Three clerks worked in the office. One was permanent day shift 8.30am to 5.30pm plus Saturday morning, and 2 clerks worked alternate shifts .I was one of these, the hours being 7am to 1.30pm (2,30pm on a Saturday) and 4.45pm to 11.55pm (2.30pm to midnight on a Saturday, a forty two hour week.). There was no meal break, meals had to be taken in a quiet period during the shift. The clerks also worked alternate Sundays, 6.45am to 3pm and 3pm to 11pm two weeks later. This meant only one day off in fourteen. Every month I would finish work on the Saturday at midnight and start at 6.45 am that Sunday morning again which meant very little sleep. So one summer weekend I arranged to sleep at the station, in the Ambulance Room where all the first aid equipment and stretchers were kept. I just stretched out on a table with a stretcher under me and a blanket on top and it was the most uncomfortable night I ever spent. Trains kept me awake half the night and when I got up I felt like I had never rested, and of course I got no breakfast, just a cup of tea and then it was time to start work again. By the time 3pm came I was very hungry despite a few sandwiches and I felt I needed a shave and a good sleep. Never again.

The two Manors East clerks worked alternate Sunday mornings at the neighbouring station of Jesmond, but only in summer when it was expected to be busy. At Manors North on Saturdays we unofficially changed shifts at 1.30pm giving the morning shift clerk the chance to do something with his Saturday afternoon off. During holidays and sickness we were relieved by permanent Relief Clerks who spent their working lives at different stations, a day here, a week there and they must have become very experienced in time, handling all sorts of different situations not encountered at every station. They got a lodging allowance if they were deemed unable to get to and from work in one day and this was a big attraction to anyone wanting to make a bit of extra money and who didn't mind the inconvenience. Usually Relief Clerks would find some way to travel to work and back home in a day, and still claim the lodging allowance where applicable, so that the inconvenience was compensated for. Appropriate relief staff would relieve the other grades. An embarrassing incident occurred during my time at Manors North. Joan, the clerk who worked the permanent day shift, asked me to come in earlier one day as she was going out in the evening and wanted to be away sooner in order to get ready. I was supposed to come in at 4.30 that afternoon but I clean forgot and Joan was very anxious when I arrived at my usual time and dashed off quickly. Next day I had to apologise and it was soon forgotten. Some months later Joan was going away on her summer holiday for a fortnight and needed to get away much earlier on Friday afternoon so I agreed to come in at 4.15 that day. She hoped that I'd remember this time and I assured her that I would. Sometimes I would go for a ride on the motorcycle when I was on late shift and Friday was such a day. I found myself in Haltwhistle, knowing I had to be at work early that afternoon, but I realised that I hadn't left myself enough time to get home, eat and get to work so it was a frantic ride home, a quick snack and an even more frantic ride to work. It was almost five when I arrived. Joan had gone and the station masters clerk was in the booking office issuing tickets and he was rather put out to say the least, in fact I got a very unpleasant response and he told me that Joan had had to go and that she wasn't very impressed with me at all. I had no excuse and just had to say sorry and take over. During the next two weeks I thought constantly about what Joan would say when she came back and I was almost dreading her return. I was on early shift on the Monday she returned to work and when she arrived there was an uneasy period of silence before the storm broke. Joan was a decent sort though, so it blew over quickly and the incident was never mentioned again but she didn't ever ask me to cover for her any more.

Trains ran 365 days a year on the coast loop as elsewhere and so Easter, Christmas and New Year and the other Bank Holidays were worked. These were paid at time and three quarters, as were Sundays, with a day off in lieu for the statutory holidays. Time worked between 10pm and 6am was at time and a quarter. Annual holidays were 2 weeks, organised on a roster list containing staff from a large number of stations, the more service you had the better the month of your holidays, mine were taken in May or October as I had only 18 months or so service on the railway at that time. Take home pay was not much, about 5 or 6 pounds per week or maybe 8 pounds with your time and a quarter payments and a Sunday in.

Weekends were very busy, and late night revellers would arrive for the last trains after a night at the nearby Oxford Galleries, the pictures, or at one or more of the many pubs. Often the night out would be rounded off with a visit to the local fish and chip shop and ticket money would be offered coated in fish skin and batter. Drunks could be abusive, sometimes not only the drunks. Attempts were made by one man to snatch the pile of money we kept out of the till for handiness in giving change, but my colleague dealt his hand a blow with a heavy wooden ruler one evening and this cured him. After an unsuccessful break in at the station one night on 4 March 1961 the would-be thieves, disgruntled at being unable to open the safe, tipped out the drawers containing many thousands of unused tickets, all consecutively numbered, onto the floor, mixed them up and emptied the condensed milk and sugar we kept for our unofficial tea breaks, followed by some water, onto the lot. We were issuing sugarcoated tickets to all stations for several days although the worst examples were cancelled after the tedious operation of re-sorting all the tickets into numerical order. The would be thieves also broke into The New Railway, a pub opposite, and again finding no cash pulled off the beer pumps and flooded the floor with beer. At least our tickets could still be sold; the beer, alas, was gone forever. Another incident was the big fire at an electrical goods warehouse adjoining the station that began during the night and was not extinguished for several hours. There were lots of smoke blackened electric razors and other things salvaged from the ruins afterwards, though I don't know if any of them actually worked. I was not at work the night a disturbance occurred necessitating a visit from the police who arrested the drunks responsible. We had little crime, unless you include fare dodging, although once a ticket collector was dismissed for keeping money from 'excess fares', the term for money collected from passengers who got off the train without a ticket. A receipt would normally be issued to the person but if not there would be no record of it ever having been collected. But a substantial drop in the amount of excess fares collected by this ticket collector led to his discovery. He was not far off pension age too.

Another ticket collector ran a football 'goals buster'. You paid a shilling per week, drew a football team and hoped they wouldn't go over eleven goals when you'd bust and be out of the competition. One of the porter's wives ran a catalogue and he would bring it in and try to get us to choose something from it. There was quite a bit of chat with the other staff, especially the ticket collectors, whose room and box at the barrier were just feet from the booking office door. On a quiet evening in winter or a Sunday you needed to speak to someone during your shift, being stuck in the big office by yourself from 5 to midnight. Sometimes passengers would chat with you when buying their tickets or would ask what time you finished work but usually they just bought their ticket and went onto the platform. More often they would chat with ticket collectors, porters or station inspectors while waiting for a train. One evening two American merchant seamen came up from the quayside, where ships still berthed in those days, and asked if I could change some US dollars, but I wasn't allowed to accept foreign currency so directed them across the road to the pub or to the Central Station. There were on or two people who made a habit of hanging around the station talking to staff, maybe they were just lonely or had nothing else to do.

One November evening we had a particularly bad fog and all the buses in the city stopped running. We had the busiest winter evening I experienced, with everyone using the trains, even for short journeys. Some passengers would come up and ask hopefully if the trains were still running, and be surprised to find that they were. We told them that we had fog signalmen out or detonators placed on the track to detonate as a train passed over them as a substitute for drivers being unable to see the signals in the fog. In winter I remember snow and ice having to be cleared from the platforms and ashes put down to help the passengers and staff keep their feet. The station had coal fires in most of the offices and the waiting rooms and the porters and ticket collectors rooms had coal fires which had to be kept going from early morning to late night. One job of the porters was to keep the white line marking the edge of each platform clean and white and repainted when necessary. Everyone except the office staff wore uniforms of course, and were provided with a thick coat for winter use and a cap. Clerks wore their ordinary clothes although the union had been fighting for years for a protective jacket to be issued. They finally got these many years after I had left.

Staff would often spend their whole working lives on the railway but there was a high turnover of staff in the grade of porter, with men of all kinds drifting into the job for a few months and then leaving, though some did stay. One older man, who had seemingly not had a good education and was not earning much as a porter, impressed me with his ability to work out the most complicated racing bets in his head, despite his poor education. We had another porter whose previous job had been as a prison officer. Another was a Councillor on Newcastle City Council in the Dan Smith era. There was an accident book at each station and details of any mishaps were duly recorded. I heard all the accounts of the serious accidents that had happened locally over the years, a porter hit by an electric train while crossing the line to get to the other platform at Jesmond, and men being killed when they touched the electrified third rail. The only trouble I had was a piece of grit from a steam locomotive in my eye necessitating a visit to the General Hospital the following day to have it removed.

There were many kinds of tickets, usually pre-printed, with blanks for seldom-requested destinations onto which the destination station was written in ink. There was the standard ticket, the Ordinary single or Return, and the Cheap Day Return for relatively short journeys. Cheaper were the mid week 'holiday returns' held at the main line stations and, if you travelled locally before 8am, you could buy an Early Morning Return. There were also many Excursion fares and Holiday Runabout tickets giving unlimited travel between stations in a specified area. Children travelled at half fare between ages 3 and 14 and there were special children's tickets where there was steady demand, otherwise the adult ticket would be cut in half diagonally before issue, according to the rules. and issued to the passenger who was usually extremely dubious as to its validity. Sometimes the remaining half would remain unsold for years. Dogs, bikes and prams had their own fares and tickets. There were weekly, monthly and annual season tickets. Railway Staff were entitled to Privilege tickets offering cheap travel, but a form had to be completed and signed by the stationmaster before travel, which made impromptu journeys difficult. Before issue, each ticket was date-stamped using an ancient but effective date-press machine, painted green. There is an example in the railway station office at Beamish museum. The ticket was inserted into a slot half way down and, the front being hinged, it moved inwards and the date was stamped onto the end of the ticket. Both ends required stamping for returns as each half of the ticket covered one portion of the journey. To stamp each end tickets had to be turned through 180 degrees and if there was a long queue for tickets you had to be able to do it fast, using one hand, some clerks were exceptionally quick. At the end of the late shift the clerk would change the type in the machine to show tomorrows date Tickets were held in large racks and stored vertically in rows with each station having its own row of tickets, consecutively numbered. Singles were arranged separately from returns, also adult and children's tickets. As a ticket was pulled from the bottom of the rack for issue the next dropped into place, ready for issue, a simple but effective system. After each balance the ticket at the bottom of each row was marked with a pen to show that row had been checked. The serial number of each series of tickets would be recorded and by deducting the serial number recorded at the previous balance we would know how many of each ticket had been sold in the intervening period and so could work out how much money we should have taken. Sometimes we were a few pence out if incorrect change had been given and we could be in debit or credit, if any credit the money was kept for when a debit occurred and it usually balanced out. If you were a lot out in your balance you would look for a mistake in your calculations.

Entry to the public toilets cost one penny and the money passed through a coin in the slot mechanism to open the door and it had to be collected every week. There were three ladies and three gents toilets; each with several machines and it took quite a while to retrieve the pennies from them all. Our lady clerk did the ladies of course. I remember in the winter the pennies were always damp and cold. It was surprising how many pennies we collected. There was graffiti in the toilets, even in those days, some of it quite entertaining. Sometimes lost property would be handed in by passengers or staff and was recorded in a book, unclaimed property being sent to York after a specified time, where it was eventually sold. . A handbag containing over 50 pounds was once found and as I had to empty out the contents for recording I was amazed by the amazing variety and number of objects present in a lady's handbag. The bag was claimed quite soon and the finder got a reward as the sum of 50 pounds was about four weeks wages in 1960. Every week a man would come round and post advertising bills on the many billboards on the premises, the most interesting for me being the cinema ones with posters advertising the films being shown at the big cinemas in Newcastle. I went to the pictures whenever possible and liked looking at the bills, which have become very collectable and valuable in recent years though .I never managed to obtain any. While I was at Manors an interesting diversion occurred in the summer of 1960 when a film production company came to Newcastle to shoot location scenes for a film called Payroll. This starred Michael Craig and also featured Kenneth Griffith, Tom Bell and Billie Whitelaw. The story concerned a payroll-van robbery which went wrong, resulting in the murder of a guard, whose wife eventually tracks down the killers. Although none of the cast managed a Tyneside accent there were many locally filmed scenes. One of the locations was the Granary Lane Warehouse just off Trafalgar Street near the station where the gang had their hideout There were the big lamps set up and lots of people rushing around getting things ready for a take. There were several shots in the back lane and one of Michael Craig driving a sports car along City Road and turning left into Trafalgar Street. The film was released in 1961 and sometimes turns up on TV. There are many other local locations, the old Redheugh Bridge, Grey Street, the Monument, Seaton Sluice and several Newcastle City centre streets and a house at Tynemouth. Were one of the villains lived.

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