THE MORNING YEARS

Secret places, we all had them as kids, some were built, some were natural and some, the very good ones, were unexpectedly found. Along with my little troop of allies I had a few places to which a retreat could be made. The large oak tree in Darkmere Wood had a small tree house, useful in summer but exposed to the world in winter. Then there was a small cave in the Chalk Pits, we had put some shoring up to help keep the place stable and it was a good funk hole in dry weather but come the rains it got very wet, limestone doesn't exactly keep water out.
However, our very special place was deep inside Stafford's Wood, a large collection of oak, ash, beech, willow and silver birch that stretched for many miles. Nobody went there anymore although at one time, up till about 1916 there had been a small road running through it to the Chalk Pits and at one spot on this road a very small village had started to blossom. Sad to say, with the drop off in demand for natural chalk and a dwindling supple of the element itself, the village faded into time and mostly sank back into the ground and undergrowth.
Now, it wasn't the remains of the village itself that was our very special place, rather it was something that sat at one end of the shattered cottages and that something was a very old, red brick, slate roof, railway station. We found the place quite by accident whist wandering the wood and from the moment we stumbled into it, it became 'ours'. The rails themselves had long been removed, two wars had seen a huge need for iron and Steele ... but, here and there you could still see some of the old sleepers, or the rotted remains of them. Like many did in those days, the station had, at one time, had a track running down both sides of it; now the sleepers appeared from the trees at one end and vanished back into the trees at the other. As to the station itself, well, it had a waiting room, small ticket office, small baggage room and male and female toilets. Naturally it was hard to tell what was what but some of the old signs could still be read and that helped to clarify things. At the end of one of the two platforms sat a single little box which held a big lever, this would have worked a signal somewhere, but where and why we never discovered. Oil lamps had lit the buildings and platforms, so it had never even got connected to the gas supply; perhaps this was something they had always been 'going to do'. Over the window of the tiny ticket office still hung the faded remains of a poster advertising 'The Great Brighton Seaside Piers - Fun for All the Family'. At one end, where the two platforms joined each other after skirting the buildings, we discovered what was left of the old double side station name sign "STAFFORDS WOOD HALT" as with Hurst Green the place had never been large enough to have something as grand as a station so, instead, the place was called a 'Halt'.

We had discovered the station late in our time as kids, it was actually the summer holidays of 1957, the last of the holidays whilst attending Merle Common Primary School. I was wandering with my team of mini cohorts, that is to say, Carol Vickers, Barbara Hatson, Chris Bonney (son of the village bobby) Dickie Warner, Keith Smart, Tom Eager and Miles Freeman (son of the village postman). It was just after mid July and the days were long and warm, the temperature softened by a light afternoon breeze that tumbled down from the Downs to cool our little world.
The boys and Carole I have mentioned before but I don't think Barbara was previously been explained. Carol, as with all pretty girls, liked to have a 'not so pretty girl' as a best friend, I think they are more comfortable with someone who is not competition. Barbara was as tall as any boy and on the plump side; however, she had what I would call an innocent yet vivacious face. Being a farm girl she was streets ahead of us in the realities of the world, she knew 'stuff' that we didn't. Whereas the rest of us were still airheads Barbara was sanity & common sense. She was the one who put a bandage on any serious cut and laughed at anybody who thought they were more hurt than they were. The year previous Tom had fractured an arm and it was Barbara that bound it up with a splint and then made him walk to the bus stop to get a ride to the little cottage hospital; there were no frills with Barbara.
Anyway back to the station. At first we didn't realize what it was, we thought it was an old cottage; it was only after realising that cottages don't get built on raised platforms that we recognized it for what it was. In a way it was all a bit spooky, here we were in the middle of a wood, miles from anywhere and in a natural clearing was a small, overgrown, unknown railway station... that sort of stopped us in our tracks (if you will forgive the pun). I can still remember the joy and wonder with which we explored our new find, this was the secret place or all secret places and it was to become our home camp for the remainder of that final summer holiday.
The problem with some things is that, no matter how exciting they are to begin with, the interest drops with familiarity, this didn't happen with our railway station (we found it, we owned it) each visit was better than the last, there was simply so much to see and do. The girls recruited another of their species, this one was called Mandy (Amanda) and she was almost like a wood imp herself. I assume having five brothers had taught her how to stand up for herself and even take the 'verbal' attack back to males, even older ones.
I guess you want to know what we did with our station. Well, we cleared the platforms of grass and weeds, cleaned the windows where glass still existed, swept the place out from stem to stern, brought in chairs, tables, crockery, cutlery and many, many tin boxes, mainly OXO, in which to store our food for the day. We also restored the large double sided name to its posts on the platform and gave the waiting room (which became our living room) a coat of paint and carpets on the floor. This may all sound very mundane and it would be except for the fact of where we were, so far away from everything that it was indeed almost another planet, one with a temperate climate, many song birds, yet a silence and peace far removed from anything we had ever known. It's hard to explain but it was almost as if that holiday was lived in a rather pleasant dream.
During the few summer showers of that that year, not a drop got through the old slate roof. The water supply had long been disconnected, or, more probably rusted back into nothing but there was a small stream only a couple of minutes away and a few filled large glass demijohns gave us supply for a couple of days. Any cooking was done over the old fireplace in the waiting room, there were still the remains of the old grate and Dickie and Miles did manage to 'borrow' the appropriate brushes to sweep the chimney, you should have seen the mess they made, so the smoke never filled the room. Plus we did have one further major project ...
Only a few minutes' walk back into the trees we discovered an old rail trolley, just four wheels and an almost rotted away top. You used to see these around in shunting yards, workmen put their tools and spare parts on them and wheeled then around on the rails, I have no idea how this one ended up in the wood and the reason didn't really matter ... it was there and we wanted it.
It was Keith who remembered the small boiler that lay rusting beside the road only about a mile away at the edge of the wood. It had come from a small traction engine and still had a funnel of sorts attached. The idea seemed very simple. Get the boiler back to the station, mount it on the old trolley, build a fire within it so that smoke came out of the chimney and we would have our own train standing at our own station ... sort of. Naturally the girls thought we were 'daft' and 'total twerps' but we went ahead with it anyway. It took two days just to get the trolley back to the station, (do you realise how heavy train wheels are)? The old boiler would have taken longer but Mr. Pepper, one of the local farmers gave us a hand and it was transported to within a stone's throw of the station towed behind Angus, one of his giant Shire horses. I don't think Angus liked kids very much as he tried to nip us if we got too close. It took another two days to get the boiler mounted on the trolley and looking something like the outline of a steam engine.
Naturally it was the girls, led by Mandy, who wanted even more done. They pointed out that to be a real imitation train it had to 'arrive' at the station, even if from only twenty feet away. To prepare for this we had to fill up the gaps between the rotted sleepers and then tramp it down hard, as sharp iron wheels had to ride over it... this took a couple more days. We then pushed the trolley back away from the station so that, on the big day it could 'arrive', it would, at least, keep the females quiet. Trouble is the 'rolling back', cut deeply into our newly trampled soil and we had to do it all again to prepare for the return journey

Now, the one big problem with our station was that it was about 5 miles from our homes, we had bikes so the distance for us wasn't far, but parents were loathe to let us stay overnight, it was just that tad too far away. Plus I expect they were worried about the boy girl mix, after all, we were in that 'discovery' age group. The last week of the holiday was almost on us before parents, after a group discussion, decided to give us permission to stay at the old station for the last four nights of the holiday. Mind you we had to do some serious promising and we knew that the Sword of Damocles hung heavy above our heads.
We arrived at around 0900 on a beautiful Wednesday morning, with bedding and sufficient food for a ten year siege ; we didn't have to be home until Sunday afternoon so, to us, we had all the time in the world. Having too much food was something that had only recently started to happen; until we were around nine years old rationing was still the order of the day but the past two years had seen the shop windows and shelves again start to fill and the hunger pangs that we had all endured as 'little ones' had almost faded from memory ... almost but not quite.
That Wednesday was spent in putting stuff away, making up the bedding - girls one side of the room boys the other and heaven help any boy that crossed the line. We only had potted meat sandwiches for lunch but Barbara and Tom did cook up a meal for dinner, bangers and mash with gravy followed by homemade apple pie . To wash it down we had our Tizer or milk (or both), there were no silly rules here.

After dinner Barbara made all us boys take a bucket (heavy iron ones) and get water from the stream. This she then heated over the fire, nobody was going to bed dirty from the day, we couldn't take a bath and showers were unknown to most, but we all got a huge sponge down. Carol might have been leader in school or the village but here Barbara was undoubtedly 'Da Boss'.
Even though summer was starting to fade the days were still long and it didn't get dark until around 9.40pm, the day being followed by long hours of twilight that stretched into eternity, With dinner over we spent some time just pottering around on the platform and giving 'The Golden Arrow' as we had named out strange train, a bit of a rub down and de-rusting; silly really, as Barbara then made us all wash again. That's the problem with having girls around; they are heavily into this washing stuff. Dickie and I made up and painted a name plate "THE GOLDEN ARROW 11' and hung it from the chimney.
We turned in at around 10pm and the lamps were blown out soon after, it had been a long day and we were all ready for a good sleep.
By our one clock (no kids had wristwatches back then) it was 2.24am when there was a great 'crash' from the ticket office. This was followed by someone moving around and muttering. Now this wasn't part of the plan and for the first time we started to understand just how far away help was. Carol and Amanda were huddled in one corner and us brave male types were trying to disappear into the floor. Thank god for Barbara, she grabbed a broom strode out the door and we heard "Shoo, get away you, come on, out of it or I'll bong you on the head". Taking some courage from her voice I went out to see what was going on, only to almost faint with fright when something big and dark ran over my feet and out the door. Scrambling to my feet I followed Barbara back into the waiting room. She put the broom back against the wall. "Badger', she said. "Don't leave any unsealed food around at night; they will come from miles to get it". I guess we all felt a bit stupid and very embarrassed, a girl had chased the demon back into the night while we 'Knights of the Forrest' hid behind anything we could find.

I don't remember much of the detail about Thursday, I know we played cricket, strolled in the woods, threw stones at cans on tree stumps, you know, all the stuff kids used to do. However I do remember that, that night we put some food out on the platform and left the lamp burning. It was only around midnight when two badgers turned up. One minute the platform was empty, the next second they were there. I think they knew we were watching as they kept looking in our direction but the great thing was that, although twitchy, they stayed and munched to their hearts content. What beautiful creatures badgers are, even if they do roam around muttering bad temperedly to themselves. If it was spring we would have had to be more careful as they can get very aggressive when young are around but most of the year they are prepared to 'live and let live'. During our short time at the station we saw many creatures and birds, I think they sort of got used to us being around, perhaps the station was their usual meeting/playing place and we were a bunch of interlopers. Badger, hedgehog, rabbit, ferret, owl, sparrow hawk all were in great abundance.
That night we turned in at about 11pm, leaving food out on the platform for our new black and white friends but this night it wasn't the badgers that woke us up, it was the train whistle ...
I think I was about the last to come awake; there was a noise in the background ... something that shouldn't be there. Once awake I found the others already sitting up and in the distance but getting closer, was the scream of a steam train whistle. Looking around I saw that even Barbara was looking a bit apprehensive, this was weird. However, I was brought up in a supposedly haunted house and no mere train whistle was going to make me look a fool the way the badger had the previous night. The platform was very dark and quite cool, although there was a faint humidity in the air as an advance messenger of the autumn storms to come. There was a solid 'stillness', with not the slightest breeze, it was as if time itself had stopped. Again the whistle echoed through the darkness, no closer, no further away, it came from the general direction of the chalk pits and although about five miles away I knew the sound was coming from the real railway line that ran through Oxted and on down to Brighton. This would have been one of the night flyer goods trains and my guess was that it was foggy towards the foot of the downs, as it often was, and the engineer was letting anything on the line know he was there. So, back to bed ... Friday loomed.
After breakfast the next morning we decided to take a wander towards the end of the wood where the Chalk Pits were and from where the whistle was heard. We just wanted to see how far it was, plus we had never been in that direction before. To stay on track we followed the bits and pieces left from the old railway track, it was almost like having a path and in places the trees had become quite thick so the markers were invaluable - and so to our next discovery.
The ground gently rose up into what was called a hillock but I think the better term would be 'hillette' or 'mini hill'. It wasn't part of the Downs, just a place where the ground lifted for a while - and through this small hill was a railway tunnel, or what was left of it. The entrance had almost completely collapsed and even to our young eyes the reason was obvious. Sticking out of the end of the tunnel was the wreckage of an old airplane. All that was left was some twisted bits of metal and part of the tail. There was no way to tell what nationality it was, perhaps a German bomber on its way to London or a damaged Yank or Brit bomber trying to get home, whatever the case it found a strange last resting place, in the mouth of a tunnel, belonging to a railway, that went nowhere. This really is a very strange world.
We didn't go into the tunnel, it just didn't, for some reason, seem 'the right thing to do'. Instead we turned around and went back to our 'safe' place at the station.
The rest of the afternoon we didn't really do anything worthy of note, just wasted time having fun doing nothing. In the evening the girls decided that, as we would be boarding our train the following afternoon we needed some tickets. OK, nice idea but we didn't have railway tickets - evidently not a problem, we were to make them. Each person got given a small oblong of cardboard (cut from a cake box). On one side we had to write 'Please Take Me To' and on the other we had to write a destination. Destinations would be kept a secret until we actually boarded our train. I know that on mine (not being good in the imagination line) I wrote 'LONDON' and I peeked and saw that Carol had written PARIS, no surprise there.
Dinner was actually a bit late that day not being ready until after 8.00pm. Then there was all the washing up and washing (bloody Barbara again). Following that we went and fed the wildlife, well a hedgehog that was always hanging around, and put stuff out for the badgers ... then to bed, it had been a long day.

Saturday dawned warm and humid, the sky was still clear but it was 'fuzzy', today that crispness wasn't there. This was the big day, the 'Golden Arrow 11', would make her first and only arrival at Stafford's Wood Halt, the greatest little railway station on this planet or any other. Breakfast was huge and consisted of about everything, all fried up together in a big pan - I wonder if this was the start of the clogging arteries? Tom and Keith cycled down to the village to get some black and green paint and a brush. This was then used on the Golden Arrow, she had to look smart today and most grand engines were black or green. A fire was laid in the boiler using dry grass in lieu of paper as a starter. Trouble was, in those days paint took longer to dry and it would still be sticky during the event, plus one other thing we didn't take into consideration.
Lunch was a rather hurried affair, mainly because the females wanted to prepare a special supper and needed our one table to do it. Barbara and Miles went off to the village to get a couple of last minute things. The rest of us gathered wood for the boiler and put up some ivy strands as decorations out on the platform (not my idea) and generally mucked about.
3.00pm and it was time to prepare for the big arrival. Dickie and Tom went and lit the fire in the boiler, at first it burned so well not much smoke came out of the chimney, so some green grass was added from time to time and then it looked just right. At 3.30 pm we pushed the train into the station, where it sat making lovely smoke that did almost look like steam. Then we had to join the girls on the platform, place our tickets into the slot on the counter of the ticket window (in the old days people would put their used tickets in this slot) and board our train to ... everywhere. Later we would take them out from under the counter and see where everybody had wanted to go.
Now you have to remember that we were only kids and our planning, perhaps, left a bit to be desired. Think about it. Wooden topped trolley with old, rusted out, boiler sitting on top of it and in this boiler a roaring wood fire. Plus fresh and still wet, very flammable paint, coating said boiler.
I think it was Amanda who first noticed that, not only was smoke coming from the boiler but now flames were coming from the trolly itself. There was a scramble back onto the platform and then a bigger scramble to find water. Typical, our supply was just on empty so buckets had to be taken and filled at the stream. Naturally by the time we got any sort of water on it the fire had almost burned itself out, taking with it The Golden Arrow 11. For a second or two there was silence and them, I think, we all started to chuckle at the same time, or somebody laughed and everybody joined in. Again, think about it, this wasn't a sad happening. If all had gone to plan we would have all got aboard and then, a few minutes later got off again, this way was much better and the performance could never be repeated.
At around 6.00pm, with the fire well and truly out and all the mess cleaned away, we decided to cycle to the Downs for one last look over the countryside.
Twilight was not quite so clear as usual, the air was heavy and thunder clouds were approaching from the north east. With Carol at my side I lay and stared at both the sky and the land around us. The village was almost hidden but you could see the top of the church tower and a few pylons. Summer green was still the colour but soon this would turn to gold as autumn painted the leaves. Then, all too soon, the branches would become bare and the countryside would go to sleep until spring. Sitting there on that hillside everything seemed so solid, so safe, so lasting. But I only had another 18 weeks with Carol before she moved out of my life forever. We had been together since the age of 5, since the day I first saw her in the school playground. I can even remember that she wore a blue dress with white flowers and a matching blue and white ribbon in her hair; who could have guessed that time was now so short for us ... Oh well.
In the distance thunder now rumbled and small flickers of lightening could just be seen, it was time to go.

Dinner that night was a very talkative affair, we knew this was the end of our time in our secret place and that also, very soon, it would be the end of our time together at school, one last term and then it over. No, that's wrong; we didn't really think that, we just knew something was different.
I must admit that was a great meal. Barbara had managed to get two roast chickens (probably from her mother) and Miles produced some real oranges, both the chickens and oranges were something usually only had as a special treat at Christmas. Then it was Dickie's turn, from his old duffel bag he produced a heap of fireworks, they weren't yet in the stores for this year's Nov 5, so must have been from last year. Roman candles, bangers, Catherine wheels, jumping jacks, wiz bangs, volcanoes, even a few rockets, what a great night that was.
It must have been close to 2am before we turned in, I think that we all wanted it to last, 'just that bit longer', but all things have their time and then must end to make way for the new.

Late the next morning we went home ...

1965
I had been a serving officer in Her Majesty's Navy for close to two years and in keeping with a vow I made, never returned to the village. However, in November of 1965 I was motoring from London down to Brighton (to see a lady) and for some reason had an urge to see if the old railway station was still there. It wasn't much of a detour and the place where the road had once entered the wood was still clear in my mind. I parked my green MG (b) and rather apprehensively made my way through the trees. The wood was silence itself; winter was on us and nothing with warm thoughts was outside.

The station was still there and little changed. The roof had fallen in a bit and all the glass had gone but apart from that it had little aged, perhaps it had been waiting for one of us to call by. The visit wasn't without any purpose; there was one thing I had always wanted to do. Going into the old booking office I crawled under the rotting counter and dragged out an old tin box that had been used to catch tickets pushed into the 'used tickets' slot. They were still there, the tickets we had made up eight years previous and then forgotten to look at. They were much as I expected. Carol had hers with PARIS, the others AMERICA FOR THE FILMS - GLASGOW TO SEE GRAN - AFRICA etc. Only one was different and that was Barbara's, I knew her writing, it was bold and plain. She didn't have any exotic destination in mind hers was very simple. On one side was the 'Please Take Me To' and one the other 'HOME', clever girl the old Barbara, way ahead of her years, perhaps she was the one with that strange insight into the future awaiting us all, just round the next corner, only a footstep away.
Back out on the platform I could quite easily see it all in my mind, the badgers, the sign repairs and of course, the fireworks. For two of them, only this place remained of their being. Keith had been killed in a motor accident in 1962 and Miles died of pneumonia only a year and a half after our last summer holiday; so sad, so very sad. At the time it made me so angry, come to think of it, it still does. I wandered back into the ticket office, the tickets should be returned to the old box, it's where they belonged. Then, when putting them back I saw another bit of paper but it wasn't cardboard. It was folded over and had 'For Frank' (my original first name) written on it. It read.
"I know you will visit one day. Still miss you very much. One day perhaps we will meet again. All my love Carol". It was dated 12 August 1964.
It took an eternity of memories to walk back to the car and I don't remember even one step of the way. Suddenly I was sitting behind the now icy wheel and it was getting dark. Time to again go, there was a lady waiting in Brighton and you should never keep a lady waiting.