MEMORIES OF A HUMBLE BOOKING CLERK
When my old railway enthusiast and modelling friend Barry Allen from Liverpool asked me to go through his 30,000-word document for Just the Ticket - Memories of a Liverpool Booking Clerk, 1962-1965 before sending it to the publisher, I knew before reading a word that I would not be disappointed.
It tells the story of his three years in the job, which started at Widnes as a 16-year-old in 1962, and is laced with Scouse humour from start to finish. Nothing if not gregarious, Barry describes the characters and situations he came across along the way with a pinpoint accuracy that will have you in stitches - but there's a deep contemplative side to him as well, which comes out in his many poems, several of which are scattered throughout this little book, and one I cannot resist including in this review is The Old Signalman's Reunion:
He never noticed the wind on his face,
