Snow made me late for first day of work training – and I got a frosty reception!
FOR me, new year is the perfect time to sit and reflect on the year just finished and the new one that is just starting. Perhaps it is my opportunity to think about what went wrong last year and maybe work out how not to make the same mistakes again.
The first fall of snow this winter has taken me way back when I revisit my reflections as I moved into 1963.
I was only 15 months into my studentship training for my civil engineering future and due to start in my second training office which was the Stratford Area Engineers, usually the highlight of the early training. As I returned home after my Christmas break, the gods decided to dump a fair amount of snow just to make my life a tad harder.
Getting back from the station was my first challenge. I did not have a car, there were no buses running and also the taxi drivers had decided they had better things to do! As usual I had the wrong shoes for my mile and a half journey, and I was soon cold and miserable with wet feet. The fire was not lit when I completed my walk and there was no hot water for a bath to make me feel better.
The very next day was to be my beginning at Stratford. What should have been a one-hour journey first into London and then across to Liverpool Street and out to Stratford sadly took nearly three hours and I was the last to arrive in the office that day. I was forgiven when the journey was explained and I was able to settle to consider the training plan that had been prepared for me.
I have experienced many coverings from the white stuff at varying degrees of depth, yet I still reflect on that early snowfall in January 1963. The snow never seemed to want to thaw, and this made getting to and from Stratford far from easy.
Every day there seemed to be a top up to the snow already on the ground and I readily recall it was well into March before we managed to be rid of it all.
It was hardly surprising that it was also mighty cold through these early winter months and as the new boy in the office, my carefully crafted training plan was put to one side as I was very soon given the outside tasks that others did not relish.
A survey at Bow Midland Yard still returns to my thoughts. It should have taken maybe a week, but on that freezing cold snow covered ground, it took me almost three weeks!
Thereafter the weather did improve and working outside that summer was a delight. It was that spell that convinced me I wanted to work on a division when my training was completed. I was fortunate to get a promotion to Watford Division at this point.
As I was living at Watford and due to marry senior management six weeks later, this turned out to be the perfect move up for me at the start of my married life.
The eleven years I then spent working on the Watford Division were without any doubt the best time of my life. If I had not obtained that job way back in 1966, I would have had to transfer to York as the BR Eastern Region merged with the North Eastern to form a new Eastern Region. Maybe that would have been an equally good experience but the thought is never one that enters my reflections. Since those early years I have experienced many heavy snow falls, some that caused me some grief.
The one in December 2009 closed Heathrow for a number of days and stopped us flying away for Christmas. That though must be a story for another day!
The snow never seemed to want to thaw, and this made getting to and from Stratford far from easy.