Genealogy Chat

I am so sad that tonight sees the last of the mail trains or Travelling Post Offices,just watched it on the news and they said that to keep any franked stamps form today as they may be a collector's item in the future. Look on BBC website re article about it Ann,Darlington

there was a poem about mail trains want there - can remember it from school

Yes She, I know the one, it was on one of those old Pathe Newsreels or summat, with the bloke reading it out to the rhythm of a train. Can't for the life of me think of title, but will prob come to me in middle of night!

Night Mail This is the Night Mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door. Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb: The gradient's against her, but she's on time. Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder Shovelling white steam over her shoulder, Snorting noisily as she passes Silent miles of wind-bent grasses. Birds turn their heads as she approaches, Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches. Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course; They slumber on with paws across. In the farm she passes no one wakes, But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes. Dawn freshens, the climb is done. Down towards Glasgow she descends Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes, Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen. All Scotland waits for her: In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs Men long for news. Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from the girl and the boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or visit relations, And applications for situations And timid lovers' declarations And gossip, gossip from all the nations, News circumstantial, news financial, Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in, Letters with faces scrawled in the margin, Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts, Letters to Scotland from the South of France, Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands Notes from overseas to Hebrides Written on paper of every hue, The pink, the violet, the white and the blue, The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring, The cold and official and the heart's outpouring, Clever, stupid, short and long, The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong. Thousands are still asleep Dreaming of terrifying monsters, Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's: Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh, Asleep in granite Aberdeen, They continue their dreams, And shall wake soon and long for letters, And none will hear the postman's knock Without a quickening of the heart, For who can bear to feel himself forgotten? (W H Auden)

Hi All I don't think I have heard of that one. Now today my sister say's she was thinking of going to Darlington Station as last night to say to the lads on the train how sorry she was that this was the end of an era!! Too late now!!! Ann,Darlington

Thanks for that Bob - didn't realise it was W H Auden. Maz. XX

Just heard this peom on Radio two and i think I have heard it in my younger days. Ann,Darlington

Maz It was read to music by John Betjeman

Thanks again Bob! You must know the clip I mean then?? WAS it a sort of newsreel thing or what?? Please put me out of my misery! Thanks. Maz. xX

Maz - I remember that too - it was good wasnt it and thanks bob for putting the poem on here :-)

Maz I know what you mean. The show it sometimes. It was in black and white and showed the men sorting the post. Another wonder consigned to history!

Ann, It was a shame YOU and your sister missed the last mail train. My Sister-in-law made her children stand for about an hour waiting for the "Flying Scotsman" to go through Langely, Slough a couple of years back, well worth it for the kids, what a thing to remember. Take care Kim