BIG FOUR CAMERAMAN

“THE policeman parked his moped against the fence and leaned over the bridge parapet. ‘What are you doing down there?’ he shouted. ‘What do you think I’m doing?’, I called back, rather put out by his strident tone.

‘Come up here at once!’ he demanded. Knowing that the 4.10pm from Paddington was due shortly and that it was being hauled by a ‘King’, I stood my ground. ‘Right, I’m coming down to you then!’.

“And with that, the constable began to slip, slide and stumble down the steep-sided cutting. When he eventually got to the bottom he crossed the main line to get to me and just as he was about to take me to task, I quietly showed him my official Western Region lineside permit.

“He read it, glared at me, re-crossed the tracks and scrambled back up the cutting without saying a word. A few minutes later I got my photo.

“The officer was clearly upset and I perhaps shouldn’t have acted the way I did, but it was his attitude I took exception to. If he’d just called down politely from the bridge to ask whether I had permission to be on railway property, I could have saved him all that trouble by explaining what I was doing there.”