36 years marked at Selhurst branch

Geoff Hagan recently retired after 36 years on the railway in District 1. His career started at Folkestone central in 1977; he moved to Ashford as a freight guard the same year. He then changed ends to the front as a trainee driver at Norwood Junction in 1988 and obtained his key in 1998 before transferring to London Bridge in 2000. After an unfortunate fall in 2007, Geoff took a short hop to Selhurst where he has worked for the past 3 years as a cleaner, retiring in July 2013. He was presented with a retirement certificate by national organiser Simon Weller. Geoff thanked Roy Luxford and ASLEF’s company council for making his last few years possible.

MARK PALMER

Honey Monster

Mark Palmer, a big man in every sense, leaves a hole in the hearts and memories of Selhurst train crew after his sudden passing in August.

Mark came to the railway at the age of 18 in 1983 to work at East Croydon in the buffet serving the breakfasts. Marky, Honey Monster or Mr Jerk Chicken Man, as he was affectionately known, used to be a shy and quiet stick insect, believe it or not!

As the old boys know only too well, drivers used to like a drink at work (‘Really?’ do I hear you say) and when, one day, he refused to serve one in uniform that really upset the driver and didn’t bode well for Mark’s future.

But that changed when he got a job as a guard in 1986 and started to come out of his shell. Though some pranksters at Norwood thought it would be a good laugh to climb to the top of the old water tower before it was demolished. Mark got six feet up before vertigo set in, asking for a parachute and having to be helped back down!

CLIFFORD CLARIDGE 

GREAT CHARACTER

Sadly, I have to report the death of a great character, Clifford Cyril Claridge, on 31 March. He was 74. Cliff started at Willesden Stonebridge Park, then went to Wimbledon and Victoria. He always had a joke or story to tell, and was good at cooking Sunday breakfast for the drivers on duty. Cliff had to come off the front with hearing loss and went into the offices, and retired in 2003. Our thoughts are with his wife Linda and family at this sad time.

Ken Heydon, 

Battersea

MARZ COLOMBINI

reports on a memorial to the two men who died at Itchingfield

In the early hours of 5 March 1964 at Itchingfield junction, three miles from Horsham, a collision between two goods trains tragically left two ASLEF members, driver Mick Guppy and fireman John Myles, dead. 

Fifty years on, to mark the anniversary, Brighton branch held a remembrance ceremony in honour of their two lost brothers which included the unveiling of a commemorative plaque. Be it Clapham, Cowden or Itchingfield, our industry has an analytical talent for reducing rail accidents to a collection of facts, figures, findings and recommendations. It is worth wondering to what extent, had Mick and John survived and given evidence to the subsequent inquiry, the findings would have differed. A question that gives rise to the quote on the memorial plaque, from The Spanish Friar by John Dryden, ‘Dead men tell no tales.’

The memorial event held at Horsham station on Sunday 26 October was, first and foremost, about the human side of the Itchingfield crash, and while ASLEF branches across the division were represented, including Brighton, Horsham, Barnham, and Three Bridges, most poignant were the contributions from the men’s families who thanked ‘ASLEF for all the moral and financial support given at the time’ which clearly has not been forgotten.

Branch chair Steve Chatfield, N.O. Simon Weller and D.O. Graham Morris invited members of our brothers’ families to formally unveil the plaque in the booking hall at Horsham.

Why do some members become ASLEF activists or politically active in any form? This was a question I was asked recently and, in many cases, it is hard to say. But, for me, it was an 
accident, nothing planned, no great design; just a sense of ‘that’s not right.’
It also has to be said at the outset that there was a great deal of encouragement from a 
particular member: Dave Griffiths, who made it his business to ensure that the young upstarts at Aberystwyth were encouraged ‘to get involved’ and have their say as well as ‘have a go’ as branch officers. there was also Mick Richards, another ASLEF man through and through, who showed me how to handle a train. A tale in itself...

TRACTION TRAINEE AT WATERLOO

My entry into the footplate grade was nothing unusual–i was at a bit of a loss for a job after 
my initial choice fell apart (light engineering was not such a great career choice in the mid-
1980s as the recession bit deep) – so I stumbled into a job as a traction trainee at Waterloo at the giddy pay rate of £72.40 a week. ‘this will do for a couple of months,’ I thought...it was not a bad job (although drivers would always say it would get better, one day) and a decision to move as a driver’s assistant from Waterloo to the small depot at Aberystwyth was one of my better ones. Although basing a career move on memories, as a child, of enjoyable family holidays in the area is possibly not the most mature approach to a career move.
It was a very unusual depot at the end of a branch line that seemed to move back in time as it progressed to the Welsh coast. unusual and retro to the extent that there were still steam 
engines on the narrow gauge line out of Aberystwyth operated by British Rail until 1988. 
their sell off precipitated the depot’s closure in 1989: perhaps the first taste of rail 
privatisation. there were some great ASLEF stalwarts at Aber amongst the establishment of 
ten drivers, who provided an incomparable education for a 19- year-old like me. the fact that Aberystwyth was a holiday destination, university campus and had a nurses’ training hospital also had certain appeal for a young second man about town.

TRADE UNION YOUTH CAMP

But let’s fast forward nearly 28 years, leaving behind the misty-eyed nostalgia, and return to 
the original question. Why, when you’ve got the job, do some people become activists and 
where do they come from? For me, it was the encouragement of Dave Griffiths, who 
suggested I attend a trade union youth camp, very common things back in the day. In many 
ways, this event shaped my political outlook and trade union activism. It was a ten day youth camp for young trade unionists from around the world, held in the german Democratic Republic (East Germany, as was) to see ‘socialism in action.’ it is at this point that one of life’s lessons was learnt. never trust a country with Democratic in its name for they are 
usually anything but (of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the People’s Democratic 
Republic of Korea, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, etc).
Seeing the destructive effect of an authoritarian stalinist state up close, through the eyes and 
the experiences of citizens from the GDR, some of whom became lifelong friends, changed my perception of authority. it was not something to defer to but something to be challenged – wherever it lay.
The disconnect between what was preached in East Germany and what was actually 
happening made me more determined to effect change at home. Those experiences gave 
direction and conviction to my approach to ASLEF.

A FRIEND’S FLAT IN BERLIN

As I write this, sat in a friend’s flat in Berlin, it is the weekend celebrating the 25th 
anniversary of the wall coming down, an event I ridiculously missed by two hours back in 
1989 (although I may have one of the last stamped exit visas from that 
particular day) but it serves to draw a neat parallel.
The last 25 years have been tumultuous for ASLEF – preparation for privatisation, and 
privatisation itself, changing the fundamental nature of the railway here in Britain. the 
imposition of new bargaining machinery in an attempt to break the union’s hold on 
negotiations and a total shift in the footplate grade’s demographic could have meant the end 
of what was, in many ways, an old fashioned, traditional, craft union.it was not the end 
because we used the changes to create a seismic shift away from the culture of the past with 
huge improvements in salary from £11,500 then to an average now of £44,000; from one rest day every eight weeks to the four day week we enjoy now; and the abandonment of an unfair and non-guaranteed bonus system to clean salaries..
We now had a bargaining machinery led by lay reps who knew their areas, who took 
ownership of the drivers’ charter, and responsibility for their actions. the industry’s attempt to localise the nature of negotiation allowed the reps, as part of an overall strategy, to control overtime. And we used that control as a lever to create new jobs and improve long-term conditions across the whole of our profession.