The following is an extract from the privately published A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MUCKING FLATS AND FOBBING MARCH LIGHT RAILWAY by Alfred Bean Jr., the son of the builder of the MF&FMLR.
The Mucking Flats & Fobbing Marsh Light Railway was not originally intended to be used by civilian passengers, but once the construction of the Brennan Torpedo launch station and its attendant coastal defence fort was complete, the railway was used to supply the garrison with food and ammunition. One day, as one of the line’s locomotives was slowly steaming near the bank of the River Thames, two agricultural workers who were walking next to the line flagged the driver down. Having brought his train to a halt, the following conversation took place.
First agricultural labourer to the locomotive driver: ‘Are you going near Stin-po-leep?’
The confused driver asked the labourer to repeat what he had said … which he did.
At this point the second labourer chimed in, ‘You’d not be from ‘round here, be you?’
The driver, who was a native of Yorkshire, shook his head, and the second labourer said,’What Fred asked was if you were going near Stanford-Lope.’
At that point the penny dropped, and the driver realised they were asking about whether his journey was going anywhere near Stanford-le-Hope. He replied, ‘About a mile or so’, to which the second labourer asked if they could have a lift. The driver glanced over his shoulder at the empty wagons he was pulling, he jerked his thumb towards them, and the two labourers climbed aboard.
As a result, these two unknown labourers became the first civilian passengers to be carried by the railway.
Hello Bob. First time leaving a comment on your blog, but I'm a long time lurker.
ReplyDeleteJust for a bit of fun and, being from the North Riding of Yorkshire (Swaledale), I had a go at voicing aloud my own response to the labourers, should I have been the engine driver. It goes something like this:
'Aye, 'bout reckon a can tek y' mile o' so. That be gud fer yer?'
[Obviously, other Yorkshire accents and vernacular exist - and that's just in the various dales of Richmondshire!]
I'm really enjoying reading about your Railway adventures and am hoping to give the Portable Wargame ago in 2024.
Roy
Roy@CampfireFablesblog (Roy),
DeleteThanks for being a regular blog reader and for making your first comment.
I suspect that had my Yorkshireman spoken in his native dialect, neither party in my story would have understood the other!
My story is actually based on an incident that occurred to me when I was a teenager and was visiting Coalhouse Fort. A local spoke to me in South Essex dialect, and he was almost incomprehensible. He referred to Stanford-le-Hope as Stin-po-leep … or that’s what it sounded like.
All the best,
Bob