Life On The Leicester Line 026

26: Long-Forgotten Fun

Not long ago, while talking to old Coalville mate - Tony Ellison - I was reminded of some of the pranks that used to go on every day. Tony was sidekick to the ever-playful Gary Middleton, a chap who wouldn't pause for a moment before playing a prank. Both were tappers (or Rolling Stock Technicians as they are dubbed today). Together they were lethal. But what a happier railway it was then...

One Christmas I wanted some holly so I asked Tony & Gary where I could get some.

'Bardon,' they told me. 'There's trees there laden with the stuff. We're going up there in half an hour to examine the 'Hayes'. You can ride in the back of the van.'

I'd been 06.00 shed and the bulk of the work had been done, so I asked my mate if I could go.

'Yes,' he said, looking up from his game of cards. 'Off you go.'

For the next forty minutes I was on the ride to hell and back. Even at Bardon they drove around at breakneck speed on heaps of ballast, throwing me around like a pea in a tin, hitting the sides and roof. But I got some cracking holly branches.

I certainly had my share of their torments. Once, while I was out on a job, they managed to open the door of my mini and push it into the old wooden goods shed with the aid of a ramp they'd made from two sleepers. Then they slammed the doors shut. I came back and - panic! - no car. I dashed to the office to ring the police, but I was halfway through dialling when I heard the tittering behind me!

Another time they opened the bonnet and took the caps off my spark plugs, replacing them gently on top so it looked like they were properly in place. The result was obvious. Another time I drove home blissfully unaware that they'd tied a pair of lady's briefs to the front grille.

They weren't choosy about who they played up. Bob Arnold was another prime target. Bob had been a shunter at Drakelow but was transferred to Coalville as a cleaner. Bob wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and never took the time to think things out -, as was the case when the front brake hub of his motorbike developed a squeak. He was quite right to fetch an oilcan from the stores, but things went wrong when he used it. He was so pleased to cure the squeak - but not so pleased when the oily brakes failed to stop him and he came a cropper in the hedgerow.

With the bike gone Bob walked from his home in Burton to Coalville every day, a distance of 17 miles each way! One wet Monday morning the poor soul got soaked to the skin - only to be informed on his arrival that he should have been on annual leave! Taking pity, me and some of the other blokes started giving him a lift.

Bob was a dream gull for Garry and Tony. They had so much fun at his expense. Some of their jokes were prolonged - like the time they sawed an inch off the handle of his sweeping brush every day until he was almost bent double trying to use it.

A few weeks later he nipped up to Coalville town to fetch two pints of milk. The two tappers quietly nipped in behind him and pulled down his trousers so that Bob stood there with his hands full and his kecks around his ankles.

When he was on the loo once they went out and blew down the cistern overflow pipe. A loud trumpeting sound filled the cubicle and a panicky Bob shot out of the door with his pants and trousers still around his ankles. Another loo trick was to stretch cling film over the toilet bowl, with obvious results for the unobservant. The best of their toilet tricks was when they carefully placed an old pair of boots in one of the cubicles and draped a pair of old overall bottoms over them. Locking the door from the inside, they then climbed out over the top. Right on cue, the cleaner arrived and began her duties. She cleaned all the other cubicles but couldn't get into the rigged one. Peering under the gap she saw the boots and overalls and tapped on the door.

'Excuse me,' she called, 'I've got to clean in there.'

Getting no reply, she rushed off to the office to report that someone was either asleep or dead on the toilet!

Another victim was Coalville driver Bo Farmer. After nipping to the market to get his week's groceries he made the mistake of bringing them into work. The shopping bag was too tempting target for Gary and Tony. Nothing was damaged or stolen, but they actually added an extra item - a large piece of rail wrapped in greaseproof paper. Nothing was said about it for a week or so.

'Hey Bo, did you open that greaseproof paper that was in last week's shopping?' asked one of the jokers.

'No, why? It's still in the fridge.'

One of the Coalville shunters would often take home a bag of coal, spillage picked up from around the sidings, an unofficial perk that provided him with a fair bit of free heating. It was a heavy load for him to carry, but he thought the savings well worth it. One day the terrible twosome tipped out all the coal from his bag and replaced it with ballast, topping it off with a couple of inches of real coal so that the poor soul wouldn't suspect. The shunter then struggled all the way home with a bag of useless ballast!

Another victim was Roy Storer, our long-suffering roster clerk, pay clerk and general clerical dogsbody. While working busily one day Gary and Tony managed to rig up a length of fishing line from Mantle Lane box across to our booking-on point. It was attached to a board at the top of the building just above Roy's window. From this hung another bit of line with a button attached. A complex set-up, but they thought it well worth it for the fun they were about to have. With each tug on the line came a tap on Roy's window. The poor man kept getting up and looking out - but there was no one to be seen. How long they carried on I don't know, but the poor man must have been well flummoxed!

Whilst examining a train in Mantle Lane they were suddenly aware of something approaching Coalville on the up line. It wasn't an empty stone or coal train but a medium-sized horse! They tried to get the beast out of the 'four foot' (space between the rails) but it just plodded on its merry way. A block was put on both lines but eventually it ended up in Halfords car park.

The photocopier was always useful for fun, messing about with photos of colleagues and sticking their heads onto preposterous bodies. We even copied a £10 note, stuck it in a pay packet with a payslip and left it on the floor of the lobby. It looked quite real and we had plenty of fun tricking the depot workers with it. But I'll give them their due - even though we tricked them into thinking they'd found a wage packet they all handed it in. The only rogues were two S & T men. One spotted it, nudged the other, then had it away in a flash. We had to tap on the window of their van to retrieve it. Had it really been someone's wages they would have been gone for good!

The fax machine also came in for some stick. Gary would inhale a lungful of smoke from one of his habitual cigars and blow it into the fax machine. Then he'd walk off innocently to the other side of the room.

'Look at the bloody fax,' he'd cry. 'There must be something up with the bugger!'

Many's the person who got caught by this trick and rushed to switch the machine off at the plug. People's heads also got the same treatment. If any chap had thick hair it would take a while for the long wisps of smoke to start escaping from his thatch. The poor devil would wonder what was up as he walked into the cabin and everyone fell about. But the trick went wrong once when they did it to our long-suffering TCS. Gary pretended to flick ash onto his turban - but then it was panic stations as the turban started to smoulder for real. After a couple of minutes trying to flick the ash off, they eventually succeeded with a bit of paper. But the smouldering continued until one of them flicked some water at it. Nothing could be done about the hole though!

One New Year I went to a fancy dress party as a soldier. The uniform and webbing were authentic, borrowed off Ian Carder, an ex Coldstream Guard. The helmet was Second World War 'tommy' style. I had a tommy gun, which I'd made out of wood and it looked real enough from a distance. After the party, for a bit of fun, I took the gun into work with me. Gary and Tony soon liberated it from me to use in one of their tricks.

Our Polish shunter had a keen interest in WW2 stuff and we made a point of standing alongside the building, acting as if we were trying to hide As soon as he spotted us we pretended to hide the gun and scurry away. After repeating the pantomime several different places he took the bait.

'What is it you are doing with that gun you have?'

'What gun? We haven't got a gun.'

'Hey,' he said angrily. 'You think I am blind? I saw you with it. It was a machine gun.'

It was hard to keep a straight face but somehow we managed it.

'No, you won't fool me,' he said sternly, tapping his nose and putting his cigarette holder in his mouth.

Once we had his attention again we knelt down and pretended to aim it. I must say it looked realistic with its brown wooden butt and long vertical magazine. And that's how it went. He kept coming back over the boards and we kept hiding it. We never did tell him it was only a bit of wood!

In the late 1980s car technology had finally reached Coalville. One of the younger second men bought a sporty little car and on it was the latest in car alarms. With the push of a button the car could be locked and unlocked by remote control and the indicators and headlights would flash. Chargeman Ivor Haskett peered through the messroom window just as the car's owner was showing off.

'Who's messing about inside that car? Someone's flashing the headlights.'

It was a golden opportunity for trickery! Several times we had Ivor going out to try and catch the mysterious culprit - but by the time he reached the car it was always locked and, of course, there was no one around. He had great fun with his gadget, activating the alarm again as soon as Ivor returned from his vigilante role.

Amongst the comic tricksters once based at Coalville was little Geoff Crowder. Geoff was a real character. He had quite a sense of humour and would often do things that others wouldn't dare to. One evening Geoff and I took some engines to Leicester for fuel and water. Walking into the mess room we found a group of Leicester men glued to Leicester City match on TV. The volume was up so loud that there wasn't much chance of a chat. As the game reached fever pitch Geoff picked up the remote.

'What's this button for?' he asked innocently.

You'd have had to be there to appreciate the reaction - the yells and the curses those men came out with was atrocious. But it didn't stop there. After things had settled down again Geoff put a few coins in the one-armed bandit (most messrooms had them to help finance the welfare fund). The greedy machine had soon gobbled up his change. He then took out a bunch of keys and dangled them in the cash tray. With steady wrist movements he made a sound not unlike large handfuls of coins falling out after a jackpot. Again the Leicester men were distracted from their game.

'How much you won mate? What you got then?'

With a smile Geoff pulled out his keys. The men aimed angry glares in his direction before turning back to the game. How we managed to get out of that messroom alive I'll never know!

Some weeks later we arrived at Christmas week. I had been on earlies and was about to leave for home when Geoff Crowder and guard Graham Cross booked on to conduct Derby men into Drakelow. Knowing that I lived near Burton station Geoff asked if they could pop round later for a Christmas drink with my then girlfriend and me.

'Of course you can,' I replied - assuming it was just a joke!

But come teatime there was a knock on the door and there stood the two railwaymen.

'You said to nip in for a drink,' they said.

'You'll never guess what Geoff did while we were waiting for the Derby men in the platform office,' said Graham. 'The chargeman went out to get a train away and Geoff only pushed the button for the Tannoy and started singing Jingle Bells. Everyone on the platform was looking up at the speakers!'

In those days it was still a rule that staff must never drink while on duty. But it was generally ignored so long as blokes kept it moderate. As most did. We decided to nip for a quick pint and game of cards at my local before they went back to the depot. A pleasant time was had by all but it was all too soon time to leave. We arrived home to find that someone had locked the keys in the door so we had to borrow a ladder from next door and go in through the upstairs window. Towards the top of the ladder I was starting to get nervous and began to climb down again. Graham was made of sterner stuff however.

'Step aside. If you daren't do it I will.'

He scaled the ladder and attempted to climb through the top window. The noise started my Labrador barking and jumping all over the place. Then as Graham eased his large frame through the window the dog recognised him and started to lick his face. With both arms trapped Graham could do nothing but struggle.

'I'm bloody stuck!'

Then the two kicking legs disappeared inside, accompanied by a loud tearing sound and an almighty thud. After a while the back door was opened and Graham stood there. We couldn't stop laughing. The window catch had ripped his railway trousers from the ankle to the inside of his thigh! They ordered a taxi from Burton station and bade us farewell. I was still laughing as I watched them walk away, with Graham's bare leg and torn trousers flapping in the wind!