The BeerTrain

Monday 12th January 1987 I was still living at my parents in Sittingbourne at this time. Snow had been forecast on the Sunday night, when my Dad woke me up at 0550 I asked if it had snowed? Yes a bit.  A Cuppa before we headed out to the shed for our pushbikes "why don't you go first" my Dad said.  A bit strange, he always went out ahead of me - I stepped out & the snow came up to the top of my legs! "You Git Dad!". So our normal 10 minute bike ride to work turned into a near 2 hour battle through the snow on foot! We both worked at the Smeed Dean brickworks in deepest Murston, next to Milton creek.  The whole area was once a whole host of thriving brickworks & cement factories which provided the materials for the Victorian expansion & rebuilding of London.  Just this one brickworks still going now, producing high quality, traditional London Yellow Stock Bricks. These have been used extensively throughout London & the South East for two centuries...

By the time you read this we should hopefully be in the grip of reasonably temperate English weather, so in order to get in the spirit of it all, what I suggest is that you crack open a can of soup, put on a scarf, and sit in front of an open freezer door. CD's of dashing troika bells are, of course, an optional extra... Wednesday 6th February 1991 When it snows anywhere in the world, life tends to carry on as normal. Even in the UK, the Scots regard it as the frozen equivalent of water off a duck's back, and the "Eee it's grim oop North" merchants carry on regardless. But when it snows south of Watford it's a.... NATIONAL CRISIS! Thus when the snow started falling on Wednesday, 6th February 1991, our splendid Third Rail network fell apart as can only be expected when the elements have the dashed awful cheek to mess about. It's just not on! I was on a work course all week in the Hilton hotel in Basingstoke, and hearing news of the gradual collapse of rail ...