Saturday 5 June 2010

Now where were we?

With such a lot going on recently I seem to have lost the thread of my rail memories!

After Sole Street I was appointed to the exalted position of Divisional Relief based at Swanley. As the job title implies you covered leave, sickness and vacancies. This meant that you never knew from one week to the next what or where you would be working. It did not do wonders for your social life as you can imagine as you could be working in London late one night and be on the coast the following morning. In fact it did cause the break up of my relationship at the time and in many ways I still bear the scars of her betrayal which hurt me very deeply at the time. The plus side of course was that there was always lots of overtime which added to scale expenses and a 15% allowance for not working regular shifts led to some rather pleasant pay days!

The other plus was that I met many people who 40 years on are not only fellow railwaymen but good friends as well. It must be remembered that the railway than was very different to that of today and after work it was not unusual for the last one in the pub to buy the beer!

During my time on relief one of my favourite stations to cover was Orpington and when the chance came up to apply for a job there I did and I was succesfull but that can wait until another time.

On a personal note I had my regular 3 monthly CT scan on Thursday and get the result on Tuesday. Although I am certain nothing has changed there is always that nagging worry..........

Andy

6 comments:

LYN said...

WISHING YOU THE BEST POSSIBLE RESULTS..

Angie said...

You wouldn't be normal if you didn't have niggling doubts! All the best Andy.
love, Angie, xx

Liz said...

I am sorry that the flexibility you gave to your job was not given to you in your private life.
Payday can be both pleasant and unwelcome in reality.
Scars will hopefully fade as long as you do not place them under a strong UV light when they will stand out as white lines like those that mark the division of the road interspersed with numerous cat’s eyes…
That can only reflect oncoming headlights.

The Cheshire Cat:))

Sybil said...

Only one more day and you will get the latest results...all will be well I am sure...
Thank you for all the titbits about your railway experiences..It is such a shame that nowadays there is not quite the same comraderee between ones workmates..
keep us in touch with the hosp. results.
love Sybil

ADB said...

Fingers crossed that your results will OK, Andy

Odds Bodkins. said...

I'm a little late stopping by Andy so you must have your results by now. Hope they were all good.

B.