I’m in the sidings now

This write up will jump about. Today the speaker at the Torquay Museum Society was a musician, and all round entertainer - Jim Causley. https://www.jimcausley.co.uk/ He is a proud Devonian, with a fabulous voice. He has been nominated several times for the BBC Folk Awards. He has appeared on Countryfile in a Dartmoor Special. It was a presentation I organised, so I was delighted we had a good audience. The membership are slowly coming back. His theme was ‘the oral tradition’ - history through song, with many examples of the history of ordinary people in song.
I particularly liked this one about a stationmaster who lost his job thanks to Doctor Beeching. He is not in this wonderful book of blue plaques. I love them and this book is a blue plaque devotees dream. It is limited to London but I thought The Doctor would be in it. Perhaps he wasn’t very popular. The song was written by Cyril Tawney. It was a great morning. So good to hear live music again.

The pin-stripe boys have had their say,
A line must go if it doesn’t pay.
But I’m too old to move away,
I'm in the sidings now.

I’ve worked this line for many a day,
I can name any driver a mile away,
But that’s no use when your hair turns grey.
I’m in the sidings now.

Well, now I know how a wagon feels
When the grass comes creeping round its wheels.
And its timbers turn to a woodworm’s meals,
I’m in the sidings now.

So I’ll give my whistle one more blow,
Then I’ll change my pole for a garden hoe,
My bogie fires are burning low,
I’m in the sidings now.

Good business men have often said,
Always trim your costs if you’re in the red,
Well, come shake hands with an overhead,
I’m in the sidings now.

If your money tree will bear no fruit,
Never blame the man who tends the root.
But take your knife to the tender shoot,
I’m in the sidings now.

Cyril Tawney