Howard Benson's Posts

As a railwayman Alex was exempt from military service but that didn't mean working on the footplate was any less dangerous than serving overseas. On the home front the trains had to keep running day and night and often that meant braving the bombs of the London blitz. In November 1941 Alex vividly remembers a parachute mine that exploded near Queen's Park station. Whole streets were flattened and many people were killed leaving a local cinema. Alex was on a train returning from Blackpool which was caught up in the blast but he didn't realise the extent of the casualties until the train arrived at Euston. On a lighter note he remembers the drunk American soldier who found his way into an engine tender and how he courted the daughter of a pompous railway guard.