Press Office
Remembrance wreath for wartime workers
Staff from the National Railway Museum (NRM) will lay a wreath on Friday in memory of the thousands of British railway workers who gave their lives in the two World Wars.
Eleven members of NRM staff, ten of whom are ex-service men, will attend the memorial ceremony at the North Eastern Railway Memorial on Station Rise in York, on Friday 9 November 2007.
Senior Curator of Knowledge and Access, Richard Taylor, will lay a wreath on behalf of the National Railway Museum to commemorate the extraordinary contribution of railway employees and their families during the First and Second World Wars.
Richard Taylor’s own great uncle, Charles Bardy, is one of the 2236 names from the First World War which appears on the York memorial. A North Eastern Railway wagon builder at York Works, he survived nearly two years on the Western Front only to be killed less than eight weeks before the end of the war at the age of 31, leaving behind a widow and two children.
Richard said:
“This is the third year we have laid a wreath at the York memorial. I am pleased and proud to be representing the National Railway Museum and to pay tribute to my great-uncle and his fellow railway workers.”
Richard added
“As the two world wars slip into history it’s important that the NRM preserves the memory of the sacrifice made by railwaymen and their families for the peace we now enjoy. In 2007 we have more ex-servicemen from the NRM staff attending than ever before which gives the event an even deeper poignancy.”
The NRM’s Gordon Reed, who at 75 is the UK’s oldest working boilersmith, has experienced first hand the importance of the railways to the military. As a 21-year-old apprentice in the 1950s he was sent to do his national service at Marchwood, the Southampton military base best known for being the harbour used at D Day, which was at the heart of an extensive military railway network.
Gordon reminisces:
“My year’s national service was extended to two and a half years due to the 1956 Suez crisis. Our two locomotives increased to three and the railway operated 24 hours a day to provide Britain’s overseas army with all the equipment they needed, from fuel and ammunition to uniforms and flat packed coffins. Without the railway our forces abroad wouldn’t have been able to function.”
Shaun Houldridge, who served in the RAF in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down and now works as an “explainer” at the NRM, understands better than most the significance of Friday’s memorial service.
“Having been in the services myself, I am very much aware of the huge debt we owe to the men and women who risked their lives to defend what they held dear. Working at the National Railway Museum I have learned more about the vital role railway workers played in keeping the country running during wartime, and I wanted to pay my respects along with my colleagues by attending this deeply moving ceremony.”
6 November 2007