St Pancras stories

Station users share their unique experiences.

NICK EFTHIMIOU, PIANO PLAYER AT ST PANCRAS

I started learning to play the piano when I was eight and was lucky enough to end up training at the Centre for Young Musicians in Pimlico. I’m now a music teacher and come to St Pancras several times a week to play the pianos. I’ve even used them to practise on before going to interviews! I love the pianos at the station because it’s through them that I’ve met so many of my friends. There’s a growing community of musicians here and I now see it as my second home.

DON ASHER, SON OF ST PANCRAS STATION ROOF REPAIR TEAM MEMBER, SECOND WORLD WAR

In WWII my father was drafted in as part of the team to repair the bomb damage to St Pancras International’s trainshed roof. He told me that every time the sirens sounded for an air raid they had to come down off the roof, but by the time the all clear had sounded they had often only just managed to get to platform level, so in the end they just stayed up on the roof and carried on working.

I also once knew a gentleman called Roland Hoggard who was a passenger train guard with British Railways and had always been interested in repairing clocks. Roland said that the clock at St Pancras had been sold to an American in the 1970s and, just by chance, Roland’s train came into the station the day it had been dropped and smashed while being removed. He asked whether he could have it and managed to move all of the clock pieces into the guard’s van and take it home to Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire, in one trip.

When St Pancras was being rebuilt, London & Continental Railways contacted Roland and asked whether they could have the clock back, to which he replied “you’re not having it”. However, he did agree to let them photograph it and measure it. The rest, as they say, is history.

SAM LANE, RESIDENT OF ST PANCRAS CHAMBERS

I can scarcely believe I am about to celebrate my sixth year actually living in the heart of London at St Pancras. A desire to live in the capital during the Olympics in 2012 led to an internet search, where we stumbled across an apartment to rent in the magnificent former Midland Hotel. I essentially live behind the clock and have an amazing view of this wonderful station.

Every day there is something new to see, hear or touch. If ever I need to lift my spirits I take a walk through the station and I always spot something new and interesting. I listen to the good (and the not-so-good) players on the pianos and reminisce over some of the amazing things I have had the privilege to photograph here. There is nowhere in the world I’d rather be.

KEITH MARSH, FORMER EMPLOYEE AT BRITISH RAIL

I wonder how many readers know that British Railways had a sales office in North America? Sales were booming and the old reservations system needed speeding up, so a small office was opened in what was known as St Pancras Chambers on the penultimate floor of the wing that contained the Grand Entrance. Access to the office was provided via the Edwardian lift - complete with its own operator. No automation here.

Upstairs we shared a corridor with the reservations section of British Transport Hotels. At around 1000, a gentleman would knock and enter with his trolley, silver coffee pots and biscuits, dressed as if he had just left the ‘Master Cutler’ on Platform 1. And then of course there was afternoon tea... Now THAT was the way to run an office!