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on 22/2/05 6:45 pm, Phil Ashworth at [log in to unmask] wrote: > I am looking at the work of railway porters, especially "goods" porters. > > Can anyone suggest suitable material to help me "read into" the subject? > Either book or on the web! > > All suggestions gratefully received. > > > many thanks, > > Phil Ashworth Phil, I cannot suggest useful reading though the several 'Life on the Lines'type books do mention Porters. However, you make a significant distinction between "goods" porters and the others who are often known as Station staff or passenger porters. My personal experience suggests that many Station Staff Porters and Passenger Porters did a considerable amount of general purpose and 'goods' work. In the late 1950's and early 1960's I worked during every school and then university Summer and Christmas vacations as a porter at Cambridge Station and a cut flower clerk at Longstanton Station on the Cambridge - St. Ives Loop. When I started I had assumed that a Porter at Cambridge Station would primarily be concerned with passenger business but that was not so. The Up and Down End Inspectors ruled over the Porters' Rooms and told us what to do. Often we were unloading goods from passenger trains including fish boxes and live calves but we were sometimes diverted into unloading goods wagons temporarily placed in one of the bay platforms. Or shovelling coal out of a 16T open wagon placed near the North Signal box to ensure that the signalmens' stoves and the Cowans Sheldon steam break-down crane had adequate coal. Other jobs could include checking windows were closed on coaching stock stabled over-night at Cambridge especially the weekend Excursion sets. Or, in a passenger brake, placing sawdust around special boxes of salmon labelled HM The Queen and destined for Sandringham 'Check the Royal Fish, Bob, on the xx.xx in Platform 4' was the instruction. Or sweeping up / shovelling-up on Platform 3 after Chipperfields Circus Elephants had been unloaded on a Sunday and then walked through Cammbridge, trunks holding tails, to Midsummer Common. At Longstanton there were at least 3 Porters on the Station staff but the amount of passenger work was negligible and they worked in the Goods Yard, loading c 20 vanfits every night with boxes of cut flowers. There are stories to be told here about the universality of Porters' jobs but I am not sure whether they has been well covered in published books. Best wishes, Rob Shorland-Ball