Train driver Peter Sargent has been watching the clock all his working life because he likes to be punctual.

But now, with his 65th birthday coming up, he's retiring from the railways after no less than 51 years' service.

When Peter, of Swanbourne Road, Littlehampton, joined the staff of the old southern region before nationalisation he was following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.

They, too, worked on the railways and between them the three generations have now chalked up well over 100 years of service.

When he started driving trains in 1957, Peter worked on steam locomotives in the days of dense London smogs.

He remembers, 'It was a dirty job and you came home as black as the ace of spades, right through to your underwear. You also had to shout at the top of your voice to make yourself heard.

'But it was an exhilarating experience and I was sorry to give it up in 1962. It wasn't a bit romantic, though, especially in the middle of winter with little or no protection from the weather.

Some of the locomotives only had a chain to stop you in falling out. It could be very dangerous to lean out too far and I remember one driver who was decapitated by a bridge.

Peter joined the railways at Redhill (his home town) on May 15, 1944. Only 14, he was employed as a junior clerk.

In 1962, after five years of driving steam trains, he went  to Epsom to become a motorman on electric trains. He was posted' to the Selhurst main line depot the following year.

Because of his interest in the sea and sailing he transferred to West Sussex in 1970, working from Littlehampton on the Portsmouth, Brighton, Victoria and London Bridge lines.

At one time he was a driver on the Brighton Belle. With its smart yellow and brown livery, it operated between the coast and Victoria and did the 50-mile journey in an hour.

Peter, who married Eileen in 1951 and has two daughters, Shirley and Hazel, is a keen radio ham.