This is another excellent email that I received recently from Gordon Dudman, which brings back some amusing memories for me, I am sure you will also enjoy having a read of it........

BYGONE MEMORIES from GORDON DUDMAN

Arrived here via Jon Samways and the fact that I get a mention in Ian Dudley’s piece.

Do you recall that period, late 1969 I guess, when you (Alan Edwards, that's me your web editor!) went through a period of smoking herbal cigarettes?  I recall plotting our own back on you for filling the office with obnoxious smoke by, on a rainy afternoon, stuffing your small, collapsible umbrella with ‘chad’ out of the telex machine.

As you disappeared out of the office to head over for a train to Lingfield, half the 8^th floor were looking for the inevitable display of being caught in a snow storm as you put your umbrella up – horror of horrors – the rain eased and you managed over to YO without incident.

From memory, several days passed until one morning you burst into Room 85 (The ‘chad’ couldn’t have come from anywhere else) calling out “Bastards!” ,“You Bastards!”  - The previous evening you’d got back to Lingfield and it was raining. So in the style which we were all accustomed to doing, you flung open the carriage door and pushed up your umbrella to not only your surprise both the other travellers around you, to be covered from head to toe in chad. Sorry!

I regularly tell the story of the day when IFC had return to work after a hemeroid operation. I was in talking to Roger Orpin over some van movements, I recall, when there came the sound of raised voices from WABs office. IFC comes storming out, doors bang, we all look up to see what’s going on, and throws himself into his (armed) chair. It was like a cartoon, you could see he know he’d made a mistake but it was too late to stop himself. As he lands, the colour in his face changes to deep red, he grips the arms of his chair and pushes himself up – without a moments hesitation he yells out “Oh! My f**king A**e” and we all applaud!

Magic. Pure Magic.

Life in a modern railway office isn’t nearly so interesting.

G

Have you read these other BYGONE MEMORIES  

BYGONE MEMORIES from IAN DUDLEY ?

BYGONE MEMORIES from CLANCY ?

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