THE STATIONMASTER'S DAUGHTER

Chapter 3

In those first few days, the only thing to spoil my new life, the only cloud hanging over my head was the thought of starting school the following Monday. Permission was given for me to have a few days off to settle in our new home.
 
School was never my favourite place, even my first one in Cirencester, where I decided one day, not long after starting school that I really didn't like it at all and wanted to go home. I put my hand up to be excused to go to the toilet, but instead sneaked out of the front door, which wasn't locked, opened the gate and walked home, which was almost a mile away. Imagine my mother's surprise when I turned up on the doorstep in the middle of the morning. I felt very brave and pleased with myself.
 
I hadn't been home long, when there was a frantic banging on the front door. Mum opened it to find one of the teachers on the doorstep gasping for breath, hair all over the place and blurting out that I was missing, they had searched everywhere. I peeped around the kitchen door, not feeling quite so brave now. I knew I was in trouble.
 
'There's no need to panic Mrs Ratcliffe, I'm sure she can't be far away.' I could hear the breathless voice of the teacher.
 
I rushed back to my seat at the kitchen table, feeling very scared by now. 'She will turn up, we'll keep searching.'
 
Mum said nothing, but invited her in to the kitchen and pointed to me, sitting at the table having a drink. The teacher must have been so relieved to see me, but both her and Mum shouted at me to never ever do anything like that again. I never did, but I lost count over the years at the urge to walk out again. I did discover that if I said I had a bad headache, Mum would keep me off school. Some headaches were genuine, some not. The genuine ones were bad, so bad that in the end Mum took me to see the doctor, who told me that I wasn't drinking enough. My body was like an engine, he said, that needed petrol, to be able to work; only my body needed liquid to make it work. From then on, I always had to take orange juice to school to make sure I drank at break times and dinner times, but more of that in another chapter.
 
On the Saturday afternoon, after my dad finished work, Mr Bolt decided he would take it upon himself to take us down to the railway cottages, across from the station yard, to meet our nearest neighbours. First, he showed us his cottage, where he and Gwenny lived. He was determined that Gwenny and I become friends. I think he was hoping my mum could help him with his daughter. Mr Bolt's wife had only died the year before, he told us, and he was doing his best to bring up his daughter on his own, but it was so difficult. Gwenny was a year younger than me, a funny plump little girl, with straight jet-black hair, which hung to her shoulders and a fringe which covered most of her eyes, which she forever pushing off her face. She followed me around like a puppy, and she talked funny in her broad Cornish accent. I eventually managed to understand her, but only after many strange conversations. She was to spend a lot of time with our family over the next couple of years, especially during school holidays.
 
In the furthest cottage from us, we were introduced to Margot and Maurice Trewin. They were the same age as me, both the same height, with curly hair and freckles. I stared at them thinking they looked just the same.
 
'We're twins,' Margot announced proudly, as she saw me staring. 'But I'm the oldest, by two minutes, Dad told me, so I'm in charge.'
 
Well that explained it then.
 
'We haven't got a mother,' Margot continued, 'She died when we were born, so we live with our dad and our dad's sister, Auntie Jean. She's very kind to us though, so we don't really miss having a mother.'
 
I couldn't understand why all these children had no mothers. Why had they all died? Was my mother going to die too? My only experience of death up to this point was my paternal grandfather, who had died a couple of years before, but he was old, and everyone had said that he'd had a good innings, whatever that meant.
 
'Are you going to die too Mum?' I whispered.
 
'Don't be so silly, of course not.' She replied as she and Dad shook hands with the twin's dad and Auntie Jean.
 
Then there were the Matthews family, loads of them. Victor, the youngest boy, was the same age as me, but bigger and stronger than the rest of us. He had so many brothers and sisters; I could never remember them all and often wondered how they all slept in their small cottage.
 
Mr Bolt left us then, but said to carry on down the hill to meet the people who ran the garage, where the repairs for the few cars that were around, were carried out and I think, farm machinery; they also supplied and re-charged the heavy batteries for the huge bakelite radios we had in those days. The owner and his wife, Mr and Mrs Pooley, lived in a very posh bungalow - Mum's words - next door to the garage, with their two sons, Nigel and Gerald. Nigel was my age and Gerald a couple of years younger. Mum took an instant dislike to Mrs Pooley and said afterwards that she thought herself better than the rest of us. However, the two boys were nice.
 
Opposite the garage was a farm, with a large farmhouse, barn and outbuildings. Nigel's mum told us to go and introduce ourselves, as we would be able to buy our eggs from there. We crossed the road, knocked on the big old door, which opened straight away and the farmer and his wife, Mr and Mrs Downworthy, who must have seen us from the window, greeted us.
 
'Welcome to Otterham,' they said and told us they would be glad to supply us with eggs. 'Would you like some clotted cream too, my dears,' Mrs Downworthy asked. 'I always have some on the Aga for people round here or holidaymakers passing through.'
 
'What's clotted cream?' I asked. 'Is that it there?' I pointed to a large enamel washing-up bowl of thick creamy stuff with yellow crust on the top, resting on the side of the Aga. I didn't like the look of it. I didn't like the taste of ordinary cream, so I definitely wouldn't like this cream. 'Would you like to try some?' Mrs Downworthy asked, with a big grin on her face.
 
She didn't wait for a reply, but took some scones out of a tin, cut them in half, spread the halves with raspberry jam, then a dollop of cream on the top and passed them round. Mum and Dad bit into their scones and said through mouthfuls how wonderful it was. I was still staring at mine. 'Go on, just try a bit,' Dad said, 'you'll really like it.'
 
I bit off a piece, got cream all round my mouth, and licked it off. It was wonderful. Why hadn't I had scones and cream before? 'Can you buy some cream Mum? Can you make scones? Do we have some jam? I love this.' I laughed as I said it. 'We can't buy any now, I haven't brought my purse and we haven't done any shopping so we don't have any flour or jam.' Mum replied, getting a bit flustered. 'Let this be a moving in present from us,' said Mrs Downworthy as she placed scones in a paper bag, took a jar of jam out of the pantry and spooned loads of cream into a glass dish, and handed them all to Mum.
 
'Thank you so much,' said Mum, 'that's so kind of you.'
 
'Just make sure you put the jam on first, then the cream. That's the proper Cornish way.' She laughed as she told us this. As we were leaving the farm, I heard the sound of a horse neighing. I loved horses.
 
'Can I go and see the horse,' I asked.
 
'Of course, but there are two big shire horses,' Mr Downworthy replied. I knew what shire horses were.
 
We all went out to the stables and stepped inside. I knew shire horses were big, but these two seemed enormous, probably because I had never stood so close to one before.
 
'Wow, they are huge, look Dad, aren't they lovely,' I said, staring in amazement at these huge creatures. They were so tall I could have walked underneath them.
 
'Can I stroke one Mr Downworthy please.'
 
'Of course you can, but get your dad to pick you up in case they step on you.'
 
Dad picked me up and I stroked the long soft mane of one of the horses as he snuffled my face.' 'For goodness sake put her back down,' Mum fussed, keeping as far away from them as she could. 'They are having a rest now,' Mr Downworthy continued, 'but they will be busy as soon as spring comes because I use them for ploughing the fields, much cheaper than a tractor and I just prefer using horses. You'll have to come over and watch when we start.'
 
As soon as we got home, we ate more scones, with jam and lashings of clotted cream. They tasted wonderful.
 
Later on Saturday afternoon, all the kids came to call for me and we played in and around the station, and because my dad was at home, the first thing we did was to sneak up into the signal box, encouraged by Stewart, the signalman. Stewart allowed us to have a go at pulling the levers to activate the signals further along the track and change the points to allow the trains to come in on the right platform. We all watched in amazement as the next train came and one of our levers pulled the signal lever up to 'go'. Some of the levers were easy, two of us kids pulling together could manage them, but others were so hard, only the signalman had the strength to pull them. I already knew what the machine with the bell was for, Dad had told me, but Stewart went through it all again for the benefit of the other kids. It was a very important bell, Stewart said. The bells sent messages from signal box to signal box all the way along the single-track line so that two trains would never end up on the same track at the same time. The train drivers also had to carry a Token or Mallet as we used to call them, for single-track lines, which was a metal loop, passed from driver to signal man.
 
Soon bored with that activity, especially when Stewart pulled polish and a cloth from a cupboard and suggested the levers needed a good clean, we decided to leave. The levers with their brass handles didn't look as though they needed cleaning, but the signal box was spotless and both signalmen obviously took pride in their workplace. In fact, the whole station area looked clean and well cared for. There were tubs of flowers and shrubs everywhere. Not much growing now because it was winter, but the spring would bring beautiful flowers of all colours.
 
Where next we thought.
 
Let's go over to the grain store,' I suggested.
 
I was dying to play there and none of the other kids had ever been inside. The large double doors were closed, so we knocked and waited. One of the doors opened and the warm smell of grain wafted out. I took a deep breath, breathing in the wonderful aroma. Yes, this was somewhere I would love coming to. Mr Beer saw us standing outside and called to us to come on in. He was quite happy for us to come and play he said.
 
We clambered up on to the sacks, and chased each other round. Played hide and seek, and generally had a great time. Mr Beer was a very friendly man who laughed and joined in with our games, chasing us across the top of the sacks. We must have been in there for a couple of hours because suddenly Mr Beer called out that it was five o'clock; he was locking up and going home. There were groans of disappointment, but we knew that we could come back at any time.
 
On Sunday everywhere was closed, the signal box, the grain store, and no trains, so we spent most of the day either in the waiting room playing games or outside on the platform.
 
That first weekend at Otterham was magical. My new friends especially were in their element, being allowed to play on the railway lines and on the station, all places they had seen but not been allowed any where near until I arrived. It was no wonder I was so popular! We had so much freedom, so many places to roam and explore. What would we do? Where would we go first? Margot and Maurice became my best friends; we went everywhere together.