Writing – Page 4 – I Walk Alone

The rise and fall of the Railways

Gasworks train Britannia Road Southampton

Railways have played a pivotal role in my life. One of my earliest memories is of Pappy sitting me on the railway bridge at Bitterne to watch the trains, and my first full time job was in a British Rail Data Input Centre. It was there that I learned to touch type. It’s no surprise then, that the railway loomed large in my first two novels, Plagued and Land Fit For Heroes. My research told me that one of the big changes between now and then was the role the railways played in people’s lives. The main characters in both books lived in houses backing onto the railway line and the rumble of passing trains would have been a background to their lives. Hospital trains took Thomas across France and from Southampton Docks to Netley Hospital. Mary worried about her son, Eric, crossing the line on his way to school and she travelled on trains to visit Thomas in hospital. The trains rattled Laura’s windows until the General Strike came and quieted them. Percy and Lenny crossed the railway bridge and passed the busy Terminus Station every day on their way to and from work. The whole of Northam was crisscrossed with railway lines back then, but most are gone now.

A pleasant surprise

Last week I was asked to give an author talk at a local school. I have to admit I was a little nervous. In my career, I have often had to stand in front of rooms full of people and give talks, but never promoting myself and never in front of a group of year 5 and 6 children. I felt more than a little out of my depth. Why would children be interested in anything I had to say? Did children even read books these days? These were the thoughts going round and round in my head as I prepared what I was going to say.

The Southampton Tram Project

When we strolled across an eerily beautiful and somewhat misty Common in early October 2021, I had no idea that Commando had another bit of time travel up his sleeve to surprise me. As far as I was concerned, it was just another ordinary Saturday morning watching parkrun and having a wander in the Old Cemetery. My head, as usual, was full of the book I was plotting, listening to the voices of my characters clamouring for attention. The fifth book in the series revolved around a tram driver and his conductor friend. The first draft was written, but despite extensive research about Southampton trams, I’d never actually been on one. The last Southampton tram ran on 31 December 1949, more than ten years before I was born.

Coming soon…

Times of change and strife are often the ones that stand out in history and the years between the wars were certainly filled with both. The men who came back from the Great War had been promised a land for for heroes, but what they got was very different. The war left behind both economic and political turmoil, and what peace there was, was uneasy. There were still wars being waged, the Turkish War of Independence, the Polish Soviet War, the Irish War of Independence, the Rif War, problems between the Italians and Libya, the Americans and Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to mention just a few. Politically too, the world was changing, with the slow rise of both communism and fascism. America may have experienced a period of financial boom in the early 1920’s but Britain faced an unemployment crisis more persistent and severe than any since industrialisation. The ordinary, working-class men who had come back from the war faced terrible hardships. In Southampton, the men of the docks were some of the worst affected.

Southampton docks and Southampton dockers

Research for my second book A Land Fit For Heroes, took me to Southampton Docks during the General Strike of 1926. It should have been easy. In my time working for a cruise company, I’d donned the obligatory hi-vis jacket and wandered around the docks more than once. The problem was, the docks I’d seen in the twenty first century were a far cry from the docks I was writing about. In fact, a lot of the docks as we know them today didn’t exist back then. The western dock had not been built and the sea still lapped at the platforms of Southampton station at high tide. There were no hi-vis jackets back then either. Health and safety wasn’t something the dockers of the mid 1920’s worried about too much.

Northam – a picture is worth a thousand words

Researching the historical facts for Plagued was a learning curve The research took longer than the writing. Finding out what Southampton was like over a hundred years ago was helped by old maps, Kelly’s Directories, history sites and a great deal of reading and walking. The one thing that really brought Northam in 1918 to life though, was the wealth of old photographs I found. Today I’m going to share a few of them with you.

Thickening the plot

Kim and I wandered down Cutbush Lane towards Mansbridge talking about the things we’d seen in Marhill Copse. We both agreed that the signs, both literal and figurative, looked promising for this little piece of woodland. We walked past Gaters Mill, and down the hill towards the White Swan. The sky was overcast but it was a warm day. The meadows were bright with wildflowers. If it wasn’t for the tarmac road, lampposts and crash barriers, we might have stepped back in time to when this was all farmland and copses and the Itchen Navigation still carried barges filled with wool and coal.

Exploring Daisy Dip

On 11 August 2021 I’d walked across Riverside park to check out the repairs to Woodmill, then I’d carried on to the flower Roads to find the houses where my grandparents and Commando’s had once lived. Now I wanted to explore Daisy Dip, the ribbon of parkland in the valley between the houses. The park is split in two by Lobelia road and it was the west side I was interested in because I planned to feature it in the book I was writing.

The flower roads

On 11 August 2021, I’d been to look at the repairs to Woodmill, but this was just the first part of a much longer walk. In fact, Woodmill and the repairs were almost incidental. The main aim of my walk was flowers, although maybe not the kind you’re expecting. Once I’d inspected the new brickwork at the mill I carried on along Woodmill Lane, over the little railway bridge, and crossed the road at the junction of Portswood Road and High Road. I was heading for Swaythling.

Portswood, trams, tin churches, a laundry and some research

Walter Dowling was a tram driver. He was also Commando’s grandfather. In our attic, there was a wooden box with some of his prized possessions, including his war medals, photographs, postcards, and a tiny diary. During the spring of 2021, I’d been working on a story that involved trams, and Commando thought some things in the box might give me inspiration. The diary was especially poignant. Walter wrote little, but it covered the period when he had malaria and was about to be leaving the army after seven years. It was also when he first met Violet, Commando’s grandmother. He may have been a man of few words, but the words he wrote about her showed how deeply he had loved her. They brought me to tears.

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