In 1937 my parents moved to Reading, Berkshire, on account of my father being appointed to another church. This Baptist church was called Carey. Initially I was unable to accompany my father, mother and sister to Reading on account of my job for the Nuneaton Borough Council and stayed for a while at my friend Derek's home in Old Hinckley Road, Nuneaton. Arrangements were made for me to continue my career in Local Government Service by transferring to the Transport Department of the Reading Borough Council. I travelled to Reading on two occasions for interview and medical examination prior to actually moving there to join my parents. The first part of the rail journey from Nuneaton Trent Valley to Reading was via the Coventry to Leamington Spa (Avenue) branch line. A short walk through a pedestrian tunnel led to the Great Western Railway station at Leamington Spa (Milverton). While I waited for the train to Reading I watched a goods train slowly running on to the middle line. This interested me as I was not familiar with the Great Western Railway, and the sight of the 2-6-0 goods locomotive and the sound of the sniffing steam from the outside cylinders, still stay in my memory and imagination. There is now only one station at Leamington Spa, the London Midland Region trains from Coventry run into the Western Region station.
My job with Reading Corporation Transport Department, situated in Mill Lane, Reading, was secretary to the Deputy Transport Manager, and I was principally engaged to take down in shorthand and type out the specifications for vehicles and overhead line equipment which were being put out to tender for a new trolley bus system which was to be introduced to replace the existing tramway system. The tram depot, workshops and electricity substation were next to the office, and it was a new and exciting experience for me to be working close to the technical side of a large public transport undertaking and close to the men who worked in the depot day and night, wearing overalls instead of collars and ties. Once I visited the electricity substation which supplied power to the tramway system from the grid. The shift engineer on duty, a very nice man who had only one arm, his name Mr Beale if I remember correctly, showed me around the building with the big switch levers and rows of dials and the arc rectifiers which were huge bottles of bubbling mercury.
One evening when I was closing the windows of the office prior to going home, I pushed one window a little too hard and my right hand went through the glass, badly cutting my wrist and right fourth finger. The storekeeper, a first aid man, was sent for and after temporarily bandaging me up and telling me to keep my forearm up in a vertical position to reduce the loss of blood, he drove me to the Royal Berkshire Hospital where the wounds were sewn up with several stitches. I still bear the scars. My parents had a bit of a shock when I arrived home that evening with my arm in a sling. One other unfortunate incident that occurred whilst I was working at Reading Corporate Transport was when my silver wrist watch was stolen. I had carelessly left it in the washroom and when I missed it later and returned to recover it found that it had disappeared. The CID were called in, although I had not asked for what I considered to be such drastic action, and the theft was traced to the uniformed office boy. I subsequently had to attend at the Juvenile Court in order to repossess the watch, although I asked for the matter to be treated leniently, I believe the boy lost his job as a result.
We lived at the west end of Reading, and my principal recollection of the corporation tramway system was when I used it for travelling to evening classes. I think I was learning mathematics. The School was at the east end of the town near to a tram terminus which was quite a considerable distance from where we lived; our house was situated in Brunswick Hill, towards the west end of Reading, quite near to Reading West railway station. The journey on the tram took nearly half an hour, if I remember correctly, but I always enjoyed travelling on the trams. The route took me past what was known as Cemetery Junction, in the proximity of a large cemetery, where one tram route branched off. The traffic lights at this point were controlled by a policeman who was situated in an elevated box with glass windows in the middle of the junction with a switchboard. The tram depot was immediately behind the offices and I can still hear in my mind the clanging of the foot operated warning bells as the tramcars lurched in and out of the depot.
A parcels service was run by the Transport Department, and parcels were conveyed by the scheduled corporation buses and trams. When one of the new trolleybus routes was ready to replace the trams, one of my jobs was to travel on one of the new vehicles with the Deputy Transport Manager before the route was open to the public, in order to make notes of the results of brake tests and so on. It was whilst I was employed in local government at Reading that I was engaged with others to work at the Town Hall during one weekend, which earned me a bit of extra money. We were writing out ration books in anticipation of rationing, which soon after became law on account of the outbreak of war.
One holiday, I think it was Easter, I suddenly decided to cycle from home to my grandmother's (Roberts) home at Bromsgrove. My cycle had no gears and I completed the journey of about one hundred miles in just twelve hours from Reading. The route took me across the Cotswolds and I was particularly impressed by the magnificent view from the summit across Broadway. I returned home a few days later by the same route, if I remember rightly. My grandmother had not expected me and was, of course, quite surprised to see me and, in fact, at first sight mistook me for my cousin Eric, possibly due to her shortsightedness rather than any resemblance.
I was still very keen on railways and became very friendly with a relief signalman at Reading. I spent many happy hours, even at night as well as days, in the signal boxes around the district which he was called upon to work and he taught me the principles of railway signalling. It was he, in fact, who put in a good word for me when, some years later, I applied to be trained as a signalman with British Railways. It was not so easy in those days to get a job on the railway, particularly on the former Great Western Railway, especially if one had no relatives who already worked on the railway.
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