As a member who has over many years had the privilege of knowing and working with our retired Assistant General Secretary Don Mullen. I was delighted to read the tributes paid to him in the December issue of the Journal and the report of district council 1 in the January.

It was decided by the branch that a sub-committee be set uo to raise funds for the miners' families, and our four members who had been operating the fund were elected. It has proved such a success that on Saturday December 1 these four members of the branch were able to hire transport and take a quant of food, clothing and sweets to the families of miners at Betteshanger colliery in Kent. To quote one member "it was an emotional scene." 

To all those who contributed to the fund, and to future collections which will take place, my sincere thanks and appreciation. There have been some members who have declined to give anything. I apologise for their lack of thought, bearing in mind that the miners have always supported us in one way or another when we have wanted help in our disputes.

At our February meeting we quickly dispensed with branch business and turned to the pleasant task of presenting to a delegation of miners from our adopted pit, Dinnington, South Yorkshire, an A.S.L.E.F plaque.

To those colleagues who have ordered Eastbourne and Seaford strike badges, the Seaford strike has now been received and the Eastbourne strike bade is expected within a month. Badges will be sent out when both versions have been received.

On Sunday 21 July 1985 we at Tunbridge Wells had our last full branch meeting before handing over to our district secretary Bro D. Fullick on Sunday 4 August.

I would like to sincerely thank all the badge collectors who purchased various Three Bridges strike badges and unity with the NUM badges.

It is quite some time since we sent a branch report. Well a lot has been going on in our area in recent months.

The subject of apathy tends to be an embarrassment to those concerned. So it is not an easy subject to talk about.

In times of conflict, such as that of 1982, the brotherhood of our union as at its strongest, not a sign of apathy anywhere. But 99 per cent of the time we are driving trains, not standing on picket lines, and it is during this period that i question the enthusiasm, of the members.

To my way of thinking, every single member of our Society is as important as the next, and it is also important tat he realises that point. Branch meetings are for one and all. If an individual has the right to participate, but due to the apathy doesn’t turn up at meetings, our extremely democratic system falters. Each and every member needs to realise that there is more to being in a union than paying his contribution.

Listening to the Frost interview with Thatcher on TV-AM the other Sunday made me even more aware of the fact that the Prime Minister of this country wishes to destroy the unity of working class, and if apathy has anything to do with it she will. Without 100 per cent support from its members, A.S.L.E.F. will collapse and die, and its members will be thrown back into gutters of the 19th century.

We must start looking after one another. Whoever said “I m alright Jack” is absolutely out of order, shallow minded, and morally wrong, no better than those Thatcherites in the House of Commons.

Times are changing and we ought to try and change with them. Even if it takes a little discomfort to readjust, everybody must get involved, become aware of what is happening around them, and help personally towards safeguarding our jobs.

In the very near future, there is going to be an awful lot of retirement taking place on the footplate. Where is the replacement coming from? On £126 basic, God knows. I have an unemployed brother getting from social security. There is no incentive. The responsibility, the shift work, the low income will not attract the kind of professional men that we are, once more undermining our status with unprofessional staffing, and surely that will affect the high standard of safety we have no British Rail.

The July meeting of the Littlehampton branch was held as always in the Labour club. This meeting was quite well attended, but still attendance could have been higher, especially if it had included those who air their views in the mess room, say they will be at the branch meeting, but then don’t turn up. Remember the impossible can be done, miracles just take a little longer.

A big thank you on behalf of the Three Bridges branch to all those who brought the various types of strike and miners’ unity badges. The sale of badges is now at the end and the excess money of £300 has been given to the General Secretary to donate to the orphans fund

As a young train driver (I presume I can consider thus at 22) I feel it appropriate for me to comment on the recent statement that young train drivers are more likely to cause accident report, and mentioned in today's Times.

If this is the case, how is it that at more and more engine sheds round the country, "running" duties are being single-manned and drivers' assistants previously employed on these turns are being condemned to sitting in mess rooms gaining little or no practical experience?

Are we to believe that BRB management doesn't know this to be the case, or does it suit for retraining to the grade of driver, and it is self evident that as much of this time as possible should be spent gaining practical knowledge. But I'm afraid this no longer so.

It is with deep regret that I report the sudden death of Bro Bryan “Basil” House. Bryan who was a highly respected member of our depot and branch will be greatly missed by us all.

Bryan transferred from Dorchester in the late 1950s to Brighton. He was a regular attender of the branch and was elected to the branch committee in 1983.

Bryan leaves a wife, son and daughter.

A.W. RICKETTS

BRANCH SECRETARY

Over the past few months there have been a number of comments made about productivity issues that faced this union.

The sad and disturbing fact is how certain members of our union are slowly but surely being brainwashed into believing the British Railways Board’s industrial relations policy of directly linking any and all improvements in pay and conditions to further increases in productivity.

The dangers of this can be emphasised by imagining what would have happened if we had negotiated away all the 1981 productivity items like flexible rostering, DOO on the Bed Pan line, further single manning of freight trains and alterations to PNBs (which were part of BR’s original proposals on flexible rostering) by their original target dates of autumn 1981.

So by Christmas 1981 we would have agreed to all the productivity items that were attached to the 1981 pay award. The good news would then have been that there would have been no strike in 1982. The bad news would have to have found another five productivity items to sell for the 1982 pay rise, and then another five for the 1983, 1984, 1984 pay rises and so on.

It doesn’t take much imagination to work out that any improvements in pay and conditions obtained between 1982 and now would have to have been paid for by even greater flexibility in rostering, almost total single manning (including HSTs), plus unlimited driver only operation and in general thousands of job losses involving A.S.L.E.F. and N.U.R. members.

Well, thankfully back in 1981 we decided not to take the suicidal course of gaining on the swings only to almost immediately on the roundabouts. Remember possession is nine - tenths of the law on this job. What conditions we have got, we should keep; it must be our long term, advantage to progress this way.      

DEREK ABRAHAMS

THREE BRIDGES