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The Hooter at the Barry Loco works governed the life of the town, an uncle was a main line driver, when getting close to school leaving age there wasn't much choice for me and my school mates five or six went to the Loco works as apprentices, I and a few others went to the docks as apprentices. We all learned heavy engineering, steam engines and boilers, of all types. The boys in the Loco shop were all converted to diesel as BR and Beeching swung their axes, by this time I was well at sea and one day I even got one of my old school friends to come to sea with me.
Steam locos are great machines, but you don't know them until you've taken them to bits, cleaned and reassembled them, cleaning the boiler can be interesting also, before one even thinks of shovelling twenty tons of good Welsh steam coal on the run from Cardiff to Newcastle!
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