Fascinating.  Thank you.  The Manchester Ship Canal was one of the great engineering projects o the Victorian era that we studied for O-Level history.  Miss Wheelton in Room 4 at Evesham High School in 1970 seems now to be of a piece with the era that we studied!

 
I have taken something of a liberty here in splitting the above post off to start a new topic - simply to justify my adding my own schooldays reminiscences. 

My inspiration then was not in the classroom but out in the open air.  On Friday afternoons at Brislington School (Bristol), the sixth form were timetabled 'Liberal Studies' - when we could choose whichever we liked.  My choice, with several others, was on the theme of industrial archeology, led by Martin 'Kipper' Lee. He had a PSV license (which he carried with pride) and thus access to the school minibus for the afternoon.

He took us out to Crofton Pumping House on the Kennet & Avon Canal and the railway signal box at Ashton Gate (now long gone), for example.  As the teacher in charge of a group of genuinely interested students, he was given favourable treatment and access at such sites.  That is why I was given the opportunity to work a traditional signal lever in the box at Ashton Gate, on the line which was still used for goods traffic.  I failed miserably, to the mirth of my fellow students and much eye rolling from the signalman and the train driver, who was waiting outside.

Those were happy days.  CfN. 

 
'Failed' in that you hadn't yet the strength or gained the technique to move the lever?

Mark

 
I have happy memories of the geography O level field trips from my school in London SE12.  One was to Shoreham in the beautiful countryside of the Darent Valley to study the geography of the North Downs.  The other was a complete contrast, to the industrial estate at Erith to see the diverse structures of modern industry.  In both cases we travelled by train using the dense network of Southern Region lines.  In retrospect I regard both of the trips as formative - I continue to enjoy both countryside and industrial archaeology.

 

'Failed' in the sense that I hadn't then seen the appropriate technique to be applied: I was just tugging at the lever, repeatedly. When what was required - and consequently demonstrated by the expert signaller - was one smooth pull through the whole length of its travel - with some bodyweight behind it.   

 
Ah, and I bet personal acquaintance with certain levers helps too. Well out of the coffeeshop area, I can actually remember Martin Mill in Kent where the signalling staff had a more than usually extended range of duties. Also, one of the levers operated a signal at a distance of three quarters of a mile from the box. Perhaps resulting in the strongest member of post office staff in the country.

Mark


https://signalbox.org/photo-gallery/southern-railway/martin-mill/

 
For me it began with a lifetime of experience - all six years of them - and a small pale blue bicycle with white rubber tyres. Destination of choice was a level crossing on the old Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway at Brownedge Crossing, near Bamber Bridge, south of Preston about half a mile away - this was the mid-sixties - a different planet, I know.

The roadway of the crossing was creosoted timbers that exuded a wonderful smell in the warm summers of my childhood, white gates, and sweet music of the telegraph bells coming from the adjacent signalbox. Black Fives - I was hooked.

Fifty years later I became a signalman, and S&T volunteer, on the Chinnor and Princes Risborough Railway, and relived my childhood dream.