Andrew Martin: The Blackpool Highflyer

'Picking up the pace again,' yelled Clive, who was still hanging out the side, 'only trouble is… the bugger's on fire!'

We went into a cutting – a quick up and down – and when we came out we were beginning to lose the road. I put down my shovel and leant out to see the motorist and his smoking car spinning away backwards. Clive gave a happy shout and two screams on the whistle. He knew about motorcars but did not like them. He thought they wrecked all the fruit gardens of Halifax with their fumes. I told him I'd never seen a fruit garden in Halifax, wrecked or not.

Clive was still peering backwards along the length of the rattlers. 'They're falling out the windows!'

Folk would do that on an excursion – lean right out, and their hats would go flying. But with excitement at fever heat they never minded. Green and gold light was flashing about in our cab as we rattled around the Padiham Loop. It was a great lark, but 1418 was wearing me out – not from the amount of coal wanted, but from the need to keep braced against its rolling.

Clive turned to me and gave a big grin. He was a dapper dog. Nice necktie just crossed over, so you could never work out how it kept in place; coat not new but perfectly built… and the poacher's pockets. 'It pays a man to dress smart,' he would say; 'shabbiness is a false economy.' He once told me the best thing you can do with a pair of boots was not wear them.

We came through Blackburn and down the old East Lanes line into Preston station, which was all newly painted green and red and gold, like a Christmas tree in summer. A splash on the brakes, and here we came to a stand while waiting for a local goods to leave.

I heard a door bang from somewhere behind, and Lowther was climbing down to the platform, moving from one rattler to another in search of those without tickets, for he wanted to see those folk most particularly.

After checking the water level, I climbed down with the oil feeder in my hands, and put a jot in each of the links and glands, wiping away the tiniest little spillages, this being the Highflyer.

When I climbed up again, Reuben was on the footplate beside Clive. 'You two lads,' he said, in his shaky voice; 'You do know what we have on here… Don't you?'

Your mind would race as Reuben spoke. I was thinking: well, what do we have on at the end? A red lamp. That would be the usual thing.

'There's one First on,' said Reuben.

'A First?' said Clive, 'on an excursion?'

Excursions were all Thirds as a rule.

'And there's only two in it,' said Reuben.

'Two in the whole carriage?' said Clive.

Reuben nodded.

'But they'd have about, what, thirty seats each?' said Clive.

There was a bit of delay here, while Reuben thought it out: number of seats divided by number of passengers.

'That's what it tots up to,' he said, after a while.

'Who are these gentry?' I said.

'Owner of Hind's Mill,' said Reuben, 'and his old man.'

That was queer. Mill owners didn't go on mill excursions as a rule. I climbed down and ran along the platform for a look. The excursionists were leaning out of the six third-class rattlers, and some gave a cheer when they saw me, but it was nothing to what Clive would have got with his poacher's pockets and high-class necktie. When the Thirds ran out, I naturally slowed, for I had struck the luxury of space – four doors on the First, not eight, and wider windows, and those windows had curtains, not blinds, and every one of those curtains was closed, like four little theatres at which the performances had finished.

As I looked back towards the engine, I saw, beyond it, the starter signal go off. With many shouts of encouragement from the excursionists, I ran back, passing a small old lady on the platform whose black dress was out at the sides. I touched my cap to her as I ran and she smiled and said, 'They'll all see the sea today.'

But the old lady was wrong over that.

Two hundred and twenty tons we had on, as Reuben Booth had said, and five hundred and twelve souls: Whit Sunday Excursion to Blackpool, booked by a mill – Hind's Mill. It was nothing out of the common as far as excursions went, except that the mill owners were riding with us and our engine was the Highflyer.

The boards went off at Preston, and we began to be in motion again. I watched Clive standing with one hand lightly on the regulator, thoughtful, like.

The mighty crunch of the exhaust beats filled the station like something that, though not over-keen to be started, is going to be the devil of a job to finish. Because of our delay in Preston we had time to make up if our five hundred and twelve souls were not to be late for the beach.

As we came out of Preston station we were running against the County Hall, which was like a red-brick cliff face with twelve flags on top: two crosses of St George and ten red roses of Lancashire, although I knew it had been the other way about when the King had come to open the new docks. Beyond this we were put on the fast road, and Clive really opened up the regulator, and I had to find my sea legs all over again while firing. The engine was a beautiful steamer, but it would dance on the rails, and it seemed to me that sixty tons of iron, flying along at sixty miles an hour, should not be set dancing.

Clive was suddenly hanging across my bows, and the smell of hair tonic was in my face as he looked out my side. 'The bloody lunatic,' he said.

It was the motorcar again – going along the street that was hard by the line for a short while.

'Well,' I said, 'he's only driving along the road.'

'He should be locked up,' said Clive.

'Is it the same bloke as before?'

'It had bloody better not be' said Clive, notching up for the first increase in speed.

'Reckon he's following us?' I asked Clive, but just then the motorist passed us, and for a while he was fastest man in Preston. Clive said, 'Bloody sauce,' and gave a jerk on the regulator so that we re-passed the man, but no sooner had we done it than the spire of the parish church shot in and wedged itself between the road and line, like an axe splitting wood, and we were rocking away left onto the Blackpool line with an almighty clattering.

There was now a bit of a dip in the fire, which I set about filling, but as we swung down the line to Lea Green, I had to keep interrupting myself to hold on. I could never seem to get right on this high-stepping engine.

Clive looked at me, and grinned. He was at the reverser again, putting us into the highest gear. 'Not up to much, is she?'

'How do you mean?'

'Too shaky,' he said. 'Boiler's set too high.'

So that was Mr Aspinall put in his box.

'It's fun though,' he said, and he opened the regulator a little more before standing back, taking off his gloves, and smartly straightening all the many flaps of his many poacher's pockets.

We were coming up to the signal box at Lea Road, and I put my hand to Harry Walker who was the usual fellow in there, but this wave couldn't come off when attempted at speed. The signal box just seemed to whirl once in a circle as we went by, giving me a sight of blank, shining glass. After Lea Road, we were onto the flat lands of the Fylde – the fields before Blackpool. The first of the windmills was coming into view. When the wind was up and they were really working, they put me in mind of fast bowlers in cricket. I put my head out and tried to hold it still in the hot wind as I thought back to my first trip to Blackpool, nigh on two months before, and how, the moment I'd opened the door of the dining rooms on the Prom, the wind had come in with me, and all the tablecloths had moved towards the tables, putting me in mind of ladies protecting their honour.

‹o›

The waitress had given me a big grin, crashed the door shut behind me, and shouted to another waitress: 'Eve, have you got a "one" for this gentleman?'