Life on Mars
"Nostaligia" as the old cliche goes "is a thing of the past." Well, obviously it is, but if we're honest I reckon most of us are susceptible to it - to some extent, anyway. After all, it can only take a sound, a smell, a voice, a snatch of conversation to transport us back to a place or a moment in our life which has a special memory or a hold in our affections. Or maybe it will be a song or piece of music which triggers that meaningful recollection: "strange how potent cheap music can be", as the Master so aptly put it. Not always a good thing, of course: memories can be painful or uncomfortable if stirred unexpectedly, but let's leave those on one side and go for pleasurable...
This month's magazine includes an article with the title, inspired by no less than The Bard himself, 'Unwillingly to School' wherein the author recallsthe proximity of his place of learning to a railway line and the influence of the one upon the other. So him and me alike, then ...
Early influencescan shape our destinies and in a previous editorial ramble I mentioned the railway line close to my home in Bury where the seeds of a life's interest were sown. By junior school age I had become aware that my railway was a busy one of some importance, for it was the Central Lancashire line between Rochdale and Bolton forming a link between Yorkshire and the west coast. A spell on the railway bridge on the way home from school was a regular fixture, as might be another on a Saturday morning and summer picnics on the grassy embankments on the country side of town, all contributing unknowingly to a growing understanding of the basic principles of railway operation.
Freight traffic was plentiful and impressive to watch but passenger trains tended to steal the show, with many from Rochdale and Bury going on from Bolton to destinations such as Liverpool Exchange or Southport. None was particularly glamorous and neither was the motive power: LMS Class 5s and 2-6-4 tanks dominated but, like our writer in Birmingham, we often yearned for a 'namer' and occasionally we were rewarded. Bank Hall shed in Liverpool had a small allocation of 'Jubilees' and sometimes one would be found spare to work a Rochdale train - and more often than not it would be No.45698 Mars. A few sporadic others are recalled - British Honduras, Palestine and Vindictive- but Mars outdid them all.
So to 'big school' and that had a railway right behind it on an embankment; it still does, a three-storey building you can see from a Metrolink tram on the right-hand side as you approach Bury. At that time (we're talking 1964 and onwards) electric trains of what became Class 504 passed regularly on their way to or from Manchester, though the locomotive shed was also close by and a 4F would emerge from time to time to shuffle wagons around the town while its WD 2-8-0s worked across the Pennines. Several big goods trains came by the school and at odd moments a Bolton engine would turn up to collect electric cars and haul them to Horwich Works for overhaul. In addition there was a decent-sized signal box atop the embankment and activities within could be heard and, to a limited extent, seen.
Classrooms, especially those on the second and third floors, afforded advantageous views of the railway - too good, as reprimands for not paying attention were widely dispensed, while the passing of a train led to my being the subject of an accident in the science laboratory. Distracted by a steamy display outside, I managed to tip a test tube of some scalding chemical, heated over a Bunsen burner, over the back of my fingers. Off I was spirited to the first aid room for treatment and bandaging, followed by an entry in the log book. That was all there was to it back then: no letter to my parents, no 'internal investigation' into the health and safety implications and as I'd already admitted it was my fault for turning to look out of the window I was told it was a lesson learnt the hard way!
There were many other lessons learnt the hard way - notably mathematical ones and I still cite geometry and algebra with a shudder to this day. I did, it's true, learn such tasks as how to calculate the cubic capacity of a swimming bath or solve simultaneous equations, at least for as long as it took to satisfy the Joint Matriculation Board as to my competence. I then cast such formulae aside as not required on my life's future voyage and I couldn't tell you how to do either now. I did, on the other hand, by 'listening' to the signal box and observing what happened, learn much about railway working and can still recite the meanings of signalling bell codes. I wonder which 'learning' has served me better?
The Mars 'Jubilee' commemorated a warship of the line. The planet of that name was alluded to in the TV series Life on Mars, that itself taken from the title of a 1971 David Bowie song - the potency of cheap music again. The storyline revolved around a police officer who, after being knocked out in a road accident, came round to find himself living in a world 30 years before the one he'd left.
I've often thought I'd quite like to do that Life on Mars thing (but naturally omitting the being knocked unconscious bit), wake up and find myself 'back in the day' - back with the chance to do the things I never did do, to do better the things I didn't do properly, seize the moments I let pass, see how life might have turned out differently 'if only'. But specifically I'd like to revisit my railway scenes with the knowledge and awareness I've gained down the years and absorb it all, and the industrial and social history surrounding it, so much more appreciatively. What price walking, not that unwillingly, to school and finding Mars crossing the viaduct over the canal and the River Irwell with the Rochdale-Liverpool again?