Steam stalwart Clive Groome passes away
TIME-SERVED SOUTHERN Region and Bluebell Railway footplateman Clive Groome died on February 4, aged 93.
Paying tribute to his former friend and colleague, ex-Nine Elms fireman Dave Wilson said: “It was 1963, at Nine Elms MPD, where Clive Groome and I first met; in his book British Steam The Final Years: extracts from the diary of Nine Elms Driver Clive Groome, he recalls four days we worked together on the 7.54pm out of Waterloo in 1965. However, our paths didn’t cross again until the late 1980s, following the publication of his wonderful book The Decline & Fall of the Engine Driver. Clive, like I and a great many other ‘old steam men’, mourned the passing of the steam age, the camaraderie of the footplate and the skills entailed in good enginemanship.
“What set Clive apart from most of his peers was his quiet determination to keep alive those steam-era enginemen’s crafts and skills, and it led him to create his ground-breaking Footplate Days & Ways course. FD&W began as a night class in Croydon, but it wasn’t long before it moved to the Bluebell Railway where it became a week-long course of instruction, incorporating classroom teaching and the hands-on skill of good footplate practice. FD&W became the gold standard for training footplate crew from the national network crews and heritage railway volunteers on how to safely operate a steam locomotive. “Clive’s obvious enjoyment in being able to share his knowledge and expertise and his love of the footplate was infectious, so much so that his daughters Liz, Ruth and Rebecca all became footplate crew on the Bluebell Railway. And Clive’s lasting legacy is the number of men and women who, through his teaching and enthusiasm, have become footplate volunteers at heritage lines around Britain.
“My own favourite memory of Clive is of an evening together with another legendary Nine Elms engineman, Bert Hooker, talking all things railways as we enjoyed a slap up dinner and a pint on the Bluebell Railway’s ‘Golden Arrow’ diner.”