I have always thought that many railway stations <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Were at their most manicured in the years <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leading up to the Great War <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they are Blue Remembered Hills Jack <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That era has passed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has been totally obliterated by time <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here look at this photograph <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do you see <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A station master standing with two children <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His name was Mr Batchelor and the girl is my grandmother <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How haunting <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found it in a book about ten years ago <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Were they his children <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No he was the Station Master at Arley <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the Severn Valley Railway <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The children just posed with him for a photograph <\/p>\n\n\n\n
These were the days of Empire<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was something to be English in those days <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look at the flowers behind them<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were grown with care and love and won many prizes <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The platform was not littered and everything was ordered <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have always considered that the railways were a barometer <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A barometer of what <\/p>\n\n\n\n
England my England<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Lost England <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today the railways are scruffy and unloved <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everything reeks of utilitarianism <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is supposed to bring the greatest happiness <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in my view the opposite is true <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It brings the deepest sorrow <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you think that things have improved <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because we were betrayed <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By whom <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our fathers and our fathers fathers <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was all down to strength <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were ruled by fools and the sons of fools <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Men became effeminate <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sodomites <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They let Empire slip between their fingers <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They tried to grasp sand <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is considered a rather old fashioned view these days <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not agree with you Martin <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We should agree to differ <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As we are great friends <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I agree <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kent Ale <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That would be nice <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do have one question though <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That being <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What happened to the children <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do not really know <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The little boy was not related <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a chance that he might have fought <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I really do not know <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your grandmother <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She and her family emigrated to Australia in the thirties<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But slowly but surely the family lost contact with them <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My grandmother became a teacher and was last heard of in the fifties <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She was living and teaching Adelaide with her husband <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who was also a teacher and previously a mining engineer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have always thought that many railway stations Were at their most manicured in the years Leading up to the Great War But they are Blue Remembered Hills Jack That era has passed It has been totally obliterated by time Here look at this photograph What do you see A station master standing with two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13127"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13132,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13127\/revisions\/13132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}