Daydreams

It was the mention of Leeds that started me off daydreaming. I went back to around 1954 when I was on the Railway. I started as a cleaner in 1952. There were rumors that a Driver who was nicknamed as Nubby. Not that any of his colleagues called him that, it was in general us Railway cleaners who called him that.
 It must be remembered that in the 50s  most of the cigarettes did not have any filter tips, the one exception was a variety called Craven A cork tipped. There were three popular cheap cigarettes, they were Woodbine's Park Drive and Players Weights. The more expensive ones were beside Craven A were Players Medium Navy Cut, Senior Service, the two most popular but one or two others, namely Capstan and Piccadilly. remember they were complete cigarettes with no filters.
 Well the rumor was that Nubby  went round and picked up the cigarette ends, commonly known as nub ends and filled his pipe with the cigarette ends.
  It was one day that a fellow colleague of our cleaning group saw him out on the main street and he was seen to pick up several cigarette ends and put them in his pocket. So we were all certain that he did in fact pick up and use cigarette ends in his pipe.
 Isn't it funny one can remember the names of people who do unusual things.
 Well one Summer day I was rostered to go with this Sam, the one we had nicknamed nubby on a journey to Leeds. We only had a couple of jobs that took us to Leeds as the main Railway Station was I think called Leeds Central , this was the London Midland Scottish line and we were Eastern Region. The Station we went to was I think Leeds Kirkgate. The line finished there.
 Well I had never met or spoken to Sam before as he was around 60, in the Top Link which meant he was on the Main Line all the time. I was just learning my trade and was in a rather low link, this meant I was generally doing local runs and the odd ironstone run. He introduced himself to me and told me to call him Sam, I was known as Dick, although this was not my real name and I asked him to call me that. He then asked me if I had been to Leeds before and I told him I had not, with that he told me not to worry as he would give me all the information I would need. He told me from Doncaster we turned off to Leeds which was a little over 30 miles. He had a strong northern accent and was blunt but for all of that he made me feel comfortable.
 Off we went and true to form he was a good driver and when we left Doncaster he kept me informed as to what was to be expected.
 Eventually we steamed in to Leeds, he called me over and as we were only doing about 30 mph it was not noisy in the cab. He pointed out a building and said to me "You see that building there with the Bell Tower, that's Armley Jail and in the Bell Tower that where they hang um."
 I didn't know what to say but to be honest I looked up to him a little more as he seemed a nice fellow, albeit for his strange hobby of picking up cigarette ends. He did in fact light his pipe while I was with him and smoke something but it didn't bother me one little bit.
 Incidentally I never had the pleasure of working or speaking to him again.
 The only other thing I could remember of that one and only journey to Leeds was a Station called Fitzwilliam.  Years later I noticed that Geoffrey Boycott was born there. More soon.