Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland

by Joseph Tatlow

I was one of two assistants to a senior clerk. This senior was middle-aged, and passing rich on eighty pounds a year. A quiet, steady, respectable married man, well dressed, cheerful, contented, he had by care and economy, out of his modest salary, built for himself a snug little double-breasted villa, in a pleasant outskirt of the town, where he spent his spare hours in his garden and enjoyed a comfortable and happy life.

Except the chief clerk, whose salary was about £160, I do not believe there was another whose pay exceeded £100 a year. The real head of the office, or department it was called, was not the chief clerk but one who ranked higher still and was styled Head of Department, and he received a salary of about £300. Moderate salaries prevailed, but the sovereign was worth much more then than now, while wants were fewer. Beer was threepence the pint and tobacco threepence the ounce, and beer we drank but never whiskey or wine; and pipes we smoked but not cigars.

This chief clerk was an amiable rather ladylike person, with small hands and feet and well-arranged curly hair. He was quick and clever and work sat lightly upon him. Quiet and good natured, when necessity arose he never failed to assert his authority. We all respected him. His young wife was pretty and pleasant, which was in his favour too.

The office was by no means altogether composed of steady specimens of clerkdom, but had a large admixture of lively sparks who, though they would never set the Thames on fire, brightened and enlivened our surroundings.

There was one, a literary genius, who had entered the service, I believe by influence, for influence and patronage were in those days not unknown. He wrote in his spare time the pantomime for a Birmingham theatre; and there constantly fluttered from his desk and circulated through the office, little scraps of paper containing quips and puns and jokes in prose or verse, or acrostics from his prolific pen. One clever acrostic upon the office boy, which has always remained in my memory, I should like for its delicate irony (worthy of Swift himself) to reproduce; but as that promising youth may still be in the service I feel I had better not, as irony sometimes wounds. For some time we had in the office an Apollo—a very Belvidere. He was a glory introduced into railway life by I know not what influence and disappeared after a time I know not where or why. A marvel of manly strength and grace and beauty, thirty years of age or so, and faultlessly dressed. Said to be aristocratically connected, he was the admiration of all and the darling of the young ladies of Derby. He lodged in fashionable apartments, smoked expensive cigars, attended all public amusements, was affable and charming, but reticent about himself. Why he ever came amongst us none ever knew; it was a mystery we never fathomed. He left as he came, a mystery still.

There was an oldish clerk whom we nicknamed Gumpots. This bore some resemblance to his surname, but there were other reasons which led to the playful designation and which I think justified it.

There was another scribe of quite an elegant sort: a perambulating tailor’s dummy; a young man, well under thirty. He was good-looking, as far as regularity of features and a well-formed figure went, but mentally not much to boast of. He lounged about the station platform and the town

displaying his faultlessly fitting fashionable clothes. They always looked new, and as his salary was not more than £70 a year, and his parents, with whom he lived, were poor, the story that he was provided gratis by an enterprising tailor in town with these suits, on condition that he exhibited himself constantly in public, and told whenever he could who was his outfitter, received general credence, and I believe was true. He was never known to hurry, mingled little with men and less with women, but moved along in a stiff tailor-dummy fashion with a sort of self-conscious air which seemed to say, “Look at my figure and my clothes, how stylish they are!”

I remember a senior clerk in the office where I first worked to whom there was a general aversion. He was the only clerk who was really disliked, for all the others, old or young, serious or gay, steady or rackety, had each some pleasant quality. This unfortunate fellow had none. He was small, mean, cunning, a sneak and a mischief maker. He carried tales, told lies, and tried to make trouble, for no reason but to gratify his inclinations. He was a dark impish looking fellow, as lean as Cassius and as crafty and envious as Iago. The chief clerk, to his credit be it said, gave a deaf ear to his tales, and his craft and cunning obtained him little beyond our detestation.

In our own office about half our number were youths and single men and about half were married. Our youngest benedict was not more than eighteen years of age, and his salary only £45 a year. On this modest income for a time the young couple lived. It was a runaway match; on the girl’s part an elopement from school. They lived in apartments, kept by an old lady, a widow who, being a woman, loved a bit of romance, and was very kind to them. He was a manly young fellow, a sportsman and renowned at cricket, and she was amiable and pretty, a little blonde beauty. The parents were well to do, and in due time forgave the imprudent match. At this we all rejoiced for he was a general favourite.