Ron Kennedy
Jovial Essex county councillor and long-serving train driver
RON KENNEDY, who has died aged 85, combined a career driving famous locomotives like Flying Scotsman with decades of service to his adopted home of Southend as a Labour councillor and hospital governor.
A jovial man who filled any doorway he came through, Kennedy was a committed man of the Left. As a rep for the drivers’ union Aslef, he told workmates at King’s Cross Top Shed that “striking is good for the soul”.
Kennedy briefly fell out with the Labour Party over its refusal to oppose the recapture of the Falklands, but returned to be a long-serving Essex county councillor, chairing the authority in 1997-98.
Even his political foes knew him as “a lovely man who was always smiling”; his ambition was to “die fat and happy”. Kennedy’s commonsense approach and readiness to pass on his experience – especially to young councillors – earned him general respect.
Kennedy drove not only Flying Scotsman but also Sir Nigel Gresley’s streamlined A4 Pacifics, one of which appears on his official portrait in County Hall, Chelmsford.
When in 2016 Flying Scotsman returned to service after a £4.2 million overhaul, he was one of those invited aboard its first train, from King’s Cross to York. He said: “I never dreamt of being on it again. It was just fantastic.” But he added: “She was a great train, but I’m an A4 man.”
Ronald John Kennedy was born at St Pancras, a stone’s throw from King’s Cross, on August 12 1932, one of five children of John and Annie Kennedy, who both worked on the railway. Evacuated to Bolton in wartime, he tried for a railway job there but was told by his grandfather he had to start at King’s Cross.
He joined the London & North Eastern Railway as a locomotive cleaner months before the railways were nationalised. He worked his way up to fireman and then to driver, his progression interrupted by National Service with the Army, first as a wireless operator and then as a paratrooper (having discovered paras were paid more).
Joining the top link at King’s Cross, he drove Flying Scotsman and other A3 Pacifics on everything from expresses to overnight newspaper trains, from 1956 until their withdrawal in 1963. Kennedy switched to the A4s, which hauled the fastest East Coast trains until the end of steam, after which he drove Deltic diesels, High Speed Trains and, eventually, electric locomotives.
In 1981 he drove a special HST from Southend to Fenchurch Street to mark the 125th anniversary of the London, Tilbury & Southend line. Speed restrictions were relaxed for the occasion, and Kennedy set a record time that has yet to be beaten.
He and his wife had a bungalow built at Eastwood, outside Southend, moving there from London in 1961. He was elected to the borough council in 1974, subsequently lost his seat, but in 1981 was elected a county councillor.
Over a generation, he served – with encouragement from British Rail – on the highways, social, policy and resources committees. As council chairman he visited Budapest. He met Nelson Mandela on a visit to Essex.
Kennedy retired from the railways in 1996 after almost 50 years’ service, just as they were being privatised again. In retirement he became heavily involved with Southend Hospital, serving as a non-executive director and then a hospital governor until he stood down in 2016. He was a leading campaigner for the leukaemia unit, and last year was presented with a lifetime achievement award.
He also took a keen interest in Southend’s adoption services, was a prison visitor and chaired the governors at Temple Sutton primary school. He was a Southend magistrate, a freeman of the borough and a Deputy Lieutenant of Essex. He was awarded the BEM in 1989.
Ron Kennedy is survived by his wife Marlene and by their two daughters.
Ron Kennedy, born August 12 1932, died January 31 2018