IMPOSTER: A DEFIANT ACT

When I was a lad of 16 at the local high school, I became friends with a fellow pupil, known as ‘JB’.

He introduced me to the Ian Allan book of steam engines by region, and ‘trainspotting’.

I would spot engines at Ely (Main Line) on the CardiffSwansea main line, and at lunchtimes I would ride my bicycle from school to Canton sheds (86C). It was a wonderful place – you could see nearly all the engines on shed because of the long walkway over the main line and stairway to the shed.

On one occasion I returned to school early, leaving ‘JB’ waiting to see a Paddington-Swansea express. By 3pm, I noticed that ‘JB’ had not returned to class.

Just before 4pm I was called to the headmaster’s study, where two burly transport police officers were waiting. They wanted to confirm if I’d been with ‘JB’ in the lunch break.

It later transpired that the shed foreman had been unable to find the shed shunter behind the shed. Then he’d seen it – it was moving slowly up and down the coaling stage road, and guess who was at the regulator? My mate ‘JB’!

Some three or four years later, my sister’s friend’s father was a ‘top link’ driver at Canton and allowed me (legally or illegally) to ride on the footplate over to the carriage sheds to collect a train for Paddington on ‘Castle’ No. 5080 Defiant – now in preservation! G.R. Williams, Cardiff