Interview about life as a railway worker, engine driver and manager in Bletchley and elsewhere in the UK, from 1942 onwards.

Bill Bassett describes details of his various railway jobs; from call boy to the ‘gruelling’ work of the express train fireman, shovelling coal on long-distance journeys between Euston and Scotland, and then life as an engine driver on both steam and diesel trains. He talks of wages, working conditions and the dangers of the job, including cleaning the insides of the hot boilers. He remembers some accidents, and also recalls some of the characters he worked with. He remembers the routine when driving the Royal Train, which he did three times; he was introduced to the Queen. His preference was for driving steam trains; his most enjoyable time was on the footplate, when he was fireman to his father as engine driver. As a driver he recalls: ‘It was always very, very nice when you got to a destination at the right time and the people used to thank you’. He talks of the ‘route learning’ before qualifying as a driver. As a manager he recalls that if there was a death on the railways ‘it was one of my jobs to go out and clean the lines up, clean the bits of the body up … That wasn’t very nice.’