Forward
In the 1990s Fred Brooks, my father, asked me to make photocopies of his memoirs and distribute them to close relatives. Years later, re-reading his writing, I realised that there was much in this little book that may be of interest to others, outside the immediate family. Fred's descriptions of his early life are intimate and evocative of the era and the places the family lived during his own father's tenure as Baptist minister of a succession of churches. Fred also had a life long passion for the railways and spent most of his working life as a signalman in the days before electronic systems took over from muscle power. Railway signalling enthusiasts will find his technically detailed descriptions of his working life on the Great Western and London Midland regions of British Railways of some interest. Fred died in 1999, at the age of 81. He suffered two stokes in his later years, but I feel sure that had the Internet been accessible to him when he was alive and fit he would have revelled in the opportunity to leave something of himself for others to ponder over and perhaps even enjoy.
I have re-edited the original text, and omitted some parts, but the language is essentially his and I have tried to check the terminology he has used against whatever railway sources I could find. In particular I have linked some terms that were unfamiliar to me to resources like the mda Object Name Thesaurus.
Part 1, Memories of a Baptist minister's son:
Coseley,
West Midlands (1917/18)
Calne, Wiltshire (1921-1925)
Attleborough, Warwickshire (1925-1933)
Holidays in Bromsgrove and Norfolk
Attleborough, Warwickshire (1933-1937)
Reading, Berkshire (1937-1939)
Grantham, Lincolnshire (1939-1945)
Return to Reading after WWII
Part 2, Recollections of a British Railways signalman,
Western Region (1949-1959):
Reading Station
Wooburn Green
Denham
High Wycombe
Marylebone
Wembly Hill
Greenford
Signalling Engineers Occupation
London Midland Region (1966-1982)
Elstree
Cricklewood
Gosple Oak
Willesden
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