Kathleen McGurl - The Stationmaster’s Daughter

‘Sometimes if a volunteer wants to work here late in the evening they might kip here, in a sleeping bag,’ Ken explained, as Tilly looked around. ‘Not often, though. There’s rumours of a ghost.’

‘A ghost?’

Ken chuckled. ‘Ah, it’s all rubbish. Just an old building creaking a bit at night. Someone died here once, but I don’t know any details. They say the ghost of that person haunts the building. Alan’ll tell you more about it, if you’re interested. He should be around here somewhere. I’ve never spent the night.’

Tilly shuddered. Nothing would entice her to sleep here, ghost or no ghost. Ena’s words – that railway was the death of my father – ran through her mind. Could this be what she was referring to?

She laid a hand on the nearest crate. ‘What’s in all the boxes?’

‘That’s our archive.’ Ken pulled a face. ‘There’s probably loads of great stuff in there. But who knows? It’s all in such a mess, and no one with any time to sort it out.’ He looked thoughtful for a moment, then turned to Tilly with a querying expression. ‘Don’t suppose you’d like to take it on, pet? Go through it, pull out the interesting bits, throw out the rubbish? You’re good at that kind of thing. We’ve got a website too, that needs someone to keep it up to date. Could be something to … get your teeth into. Help take your mind off … everything.’

Tilly glanced again into the bedrooms and the daunting piles of boxes and papers. ‘I don’t know. Not sure I could.’ Not sure? The way she felt now she was absolutely certain she wouldn’t be able to summon up the energy to root through loads of dusty boxes.

‘All I’m saying, love, is if you want to, there’s a project for you. This railway, it was the saving of me. Working on it after Margaret was gone was the only thing I was getting up for, each day. I just wonder if it could help you, too. You never know.’

*

Back downstairs, Ken led Tilly through the tearooms and into the ticket office. There were a number of tools strewn about and a barrier blocking off the ticket counter. A table had been set up on the opposite side of the room as a makeshift counter.

‘We had all this up and running, but it seems there’s some problem behind the ticket counter,’ Ken explained. ‘An old pipe in there must have corroded and is leaking. Took us ages to see where the water was coming from. Now we’re going to have to strip back all that original panelling, get at the problem, replace the pipe, dry it all out and replace the panelling.’ He shook his head, but he was grinning. ‘One problem after another, in these old buildings.’

Tilly smiled too, despite herself. His enthusiasm was catching, and it was good to see him happy. ‘You love it, don’t you, Dad?’

‘I do indeed, pet. You know me. Never happier than when I’ve got a bit of DIY or an engineering challenge in front of me. Ah. There’s Alan. Come on. I’ll introduce you.’

Tilly followed him out onto the station platform, where an old-fashioned luggage trolley, loaded with a couple of battered old leather suitcases, was artfully arranged beside a vintage bench and a restored Fry’s chocolate machine. A man who looked to be a few years older than her father approached. He was wearing blue overalls just like the ones Ken had worn yesterday. He had a shock of grey hair and kindly eyes. Tilly warmed to him instantly, despite not really feeling up to meeting new people.

‘Ken, lad, this your daughter then? Very pleased to meet you. Going to keep your old man under control, are you?’

Ken chuckled. ‘Yes, Al. This is my Tilly. She’ll be stopping with me for a bit.’

Tilly shook Alan’s hand, and then the two men began chatting about the latest work done on the railway. It was good that her dad had a proper friend here – someone with similar interests to himself, someone he could have a laugh and a joke with, and presumably the occasional pint with, in the local pub. Friends were important when life had thrown you a curve ball.

She tuned out of Ken and Alan’s conversation and gazed around at the restored station. It was built of red brick, with grey slates, in a chalet style. Upstairs she could see a window of one of those little bedrooms, while the downstairs was much bigger, incorporating the ticket office, waiting room, and stationmaster’s quarters that she’d seen. The outside of the building was immaculate; the society had done a fantastic job restoring it. On the platform, period advertising signs and a departure board had been lovingly restored and displayed. As at Lower Berecombe, the platform was only about a foot above the trackbed. But here the platform was neatly edged with grey bricks and there were rails laid, extending in both directions, with sidings branching off just past the station.

‘What do you think?’ Ken asked.

‘Looks great. Do you get many visitors?’

Alan nodded. ‘Oh aye. On the gala days we get thousands. And during the school holidays we do very well, too. Have you shown her the engines? And the museum?’

‘There’s a museum?’ Museums were Tilly’s thing. She could spend hours peering at old photos and artefacts, reading up on the history of a place. Maybe there was something she could get interested in here, after all.

‘Well, sort of,’ Ken said, with an expression Tilly couldn’t quite read. He was plotting something, she thought. ‘It’s over here. I’ll catch up with you later, Al.’

‘Cheers, mate,’ Alan said, as he loped off around the back of the station.

Ken led Tilly along to the end of the platform then around the side of the station building to where an old railway carriage stood on a siding. A set of wooden steps led up to the door at one end. Inside, the seats had been removed and a motley collection of felt-covered boards displayed curling photographs with faded handwritten captions pinned beside them. A handful of old books about steam railways in Dorset lay on a plastic garden chair.

‘It’s not much. You saw our archive, Tillikins. The society is desperate for someone to go through it all and put together some decent displays showing the history of the railway. We’re planning on painting this coach and fitting it out as a proper museum. We’ve no problem doing the practical work, but those boxes of paperwork just scare everyone off. That’s why I hoped …’

‘That I’d take up the challenge?’ Tilly shook her head. The thought of spending the next few weeks rummaging through those boxes, piecing together an enticing tale of the railway would have appealed to her once, but now … no. It was too big a job, too daunting. ‘Not sure, Dad. I feel at the moment like I couldn’t concentrate on something like that. Maybe later on, I could give it a go.’ When she felt she could last more than twenty minutes without crying, perhaps.

Ken hugged her. ‘That’s fine by me, pet. In your own time. Come on. I need to show you the engine shed. We’ve got a replica of one of the original engines in there. Coombe Wanderer , she’s called. Built by Manning Wardle, the same company that built the originals, believe it or not. She’s a beauty. We’ll have her in action at the next gala day.’

*

Tilly spent much of the day with Ken at the old station, mostly just sitting in the sunshine on a restored wrought-iron bench painted in Southern Railway green, on the platform. Ken handed her a cup of tea from the station café and a couple of editions of the Michelhampton and Coombe Regis Railway Society’s magazine to flick through, but she struggled to concentrate. She’d read a few sentences then find her mind wandering off over the events of the last few weeks. And then her eyes would fill with tears again, and she’d have to raise them from the magazine and focus on her father and Alan, who were tinkering with a railway signal on the opposite track.