Life as a porter at the town station
“ONCE a railwayman then always a railwayman.”
A former porter at Loughborough Railway station has been in touch with Looking Back after spotting his former workmates in photos in the Echo.
Trevor Willett, 74 from Tooting Road, Loughborough said that he started working at the station about a year after the photos in Looking Back were taken by Charles Matthews.
Trevor said that he started as a junior porter at about 15-years-old and worked his way up to being a signal manager in Nottingham before he retired in 1997.
He said: “I used to live on Station Street and I would see the trains shunting at the back of where I used to live.
“When I was a boy I had three options for where I could go and work, either the railway, Herbert Morris or the Odeon cinema, and I chose the railway because I’ve always loved trains.”
Whilst working at the Loughborough station Trevor said he moved up from junior porter to parcel porter, where he would deliver the post to passengers on the train, and then he moved to Barrow-upon-Soar and began to work in signalling.
One of the perks of the job was that Trevor said he always got free train travel and that once a year him and his wife would get an allowance to let them travel abroad using the train for free.
Looking at the old black and white snaps Trevor remembered nearly the whole team at the train station including:
Fred who was a ticket collector, Barry Sylvester a junior porter, Bert Hough, the foreman. Jim Bosomworth, the parcel porter. Stan Pears who was the parcel office clerk, Bill Clarke who worked in the booking office, Mr TE Green the chief clerk and last but not least Trevor’s boss, Mr RD Smith, who was the station master.
Trevor said from what he remembers Mr RD Smith was station master for just over a year before Geoffrey Baum came in and became the new station master.
• Do you remember any of the names in the article, or maybe you also used to work at the Loughborough railway station?
If so, please contact Liam Coleman on 01509 635806.