Travelling Alone at a Young Age

[Andy Kirkham]

I think it was probably in 1964 when I was eight that there must have been some family crisis - probably the death of my grandmother who lived in Torquay - and it was decided that I should spend the duration with Uncle Harry and Auntie Edie who lived in Birmingham. So one or both of my parents took me down to Temple Meads, identified the Birmingham train, sat me down in a compartment and asked the only other occupant - a lady - to keep an eye on me, then kissed me goodbye. 

 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Well amazingly everything seemed to go without a hitch. I must somehow have been given charge of a ticket but I remember nothing about that; pehpas it was sewn into my clothing. Somehow Auntie Edie found me at New Street, and I was none the worse for the experience. I remember asking if we could go up to the front of the train to see the engine but she responded "It's only a diesel" and I was satified with that. Besides Auntie Edie had other plans: she took me to an exhibition comprising an (as it seemed to me) enormous model of an airport with model planes that taxied along the runways under remote control; I seem to remember the operator pointing some sort of remote handset at the planes; did the technology exist then to control them with infra-red beams?

 

I remember being almost overwhelmed by the centre of Birmingham which seemed to be one big building site with the Bull Ring Centre and the Rotunda under construction. I felt like a little yokel coming from tame provincial Bristol.

 

I think for the return journey Auntie Edie accompanied me. I have a memory of seeing on the right-hand side a tank engine at the the head of a passenger train waiting at a junction to join the main line; I guess it must have been Stoke Works; and at some point our train crossed over another railway line and another train passed below us - I feel it can only have been Lawrence Hill.

 

Who else has memories of travelling unaccompanied by train at a young age?

 

And does anyone else remember that model airport?

 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Andy Kirkham

[Michael Hodgson]

I didn't travel alone by train at that age, but I don't think it was unusual  I think parents would have a word with a porter who would have a word with the guard - especially if a change of trains was required.  I'm not aware of any official rules, but I think it would have been difficult for the railway to argue about a child travelling with a valid ticket if he is behaving himself.

[Anglian]

I often used to travel alone by train from a young age without any trouble but it's the trips with my mother and sister that stick in my mind the most. I can recall one particular trip in BR Mk1 coaches – I can picture the scene perfectly and yet I have no recollection of where we can have possibly been.

 

[SRman]

10 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

 

 

Who else has memories of travelling unaccompanied by train at a young age?

 

And does anyone else remember that model airport?

 

 

I also was about 8 when I went to my first Earls Court Motor Show (around 1963). My mother put me on the train at Three Bridges, and my father met me at Victoria station and took me on to Earls Court on the Underground.

[Rugd1022]

I remember a few trips to London and back as a nipper, some more vividly than others - one which stands out even now is going down there with my parents and sister who was just over a year old at the time so it would have been in 1971 when I was six. We spent about a week staying in Hammersmith with my Nan but for some reason I was put on the train at Euston on my own on the return trip by my uncle John. I remember travelling on the Hammersmith & City line to Euston Square, passing through Paddington and seeing a pair of blue Warships near Royal Oak and being taken down the ramp at Euston, then boarding the train back to Rugby, sitting in a Mk1 compartment with a driver and secondman in BR uniform who kept me entertained until I got off at Rugby where my Mum was waiting on the platform. I'm almost certain that this was the same trip where I was on the top deck of a bus with my Dad and uncle John and saw Rod Stewart with his white Lamborghini Miura S in Kensington High St!

 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Rugd1022

[Nearholmer]

13 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

did the technology exist then to control them with infra-red beams?

Wireless, as in radio, more likely. Tesla first demonstrated it using a model boat before 1900 IiRC, and I think it was fairly ordinary for model planes by 1964.

 

I think children were considered a bit like unaccompanied luggage.

 

Most of my really young trips were actually by bus, because that ran very close to home,  whereas it was a fair hike to the railway station. To school by bus when the weather was too bad to walk, while still at infants, and by about 11yo I was entrusted to take my bro with me, 8yo, when we went rambling about over two counties on ‘’wanderbus’’ tickets*, and I had a week regional railrover ticket one half term at about that age, so anywhere Margate to Weymouth.

 

My best excursion was to Cambridge, funded by refurbishing and selling a wheelbarrow that I got from the dump.

 

With hindsight, it becomes clear that my parents wanted shot of me!

 

As an ‘older Dad’, I find the lack of desire to see the world by bike, bus and train in my son and his pals, young teens, quite odd, because I was always out and about at their age. I suspect the difference is that they’ve already been all over the place on holidays and outings since birth, whereas my parents could barely afford that sort of thing.
 

*The internet claims that these first came out in 1978 and cost £1.80 for a child. Neither is true: they were available a lot earlier, and cost 12/- or 60p for an adult initially IIRC.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by Nearholmer

[DaveF]

 

The earliest trip I remember well was when I was 5 years old, from Nottingham Victoria to Manchester London Road (as it then was), via the Woodhead route.  The strongest memory is being in a Gresley coach which had been freshly painted, with bright white paint on the ceiling!   The next day Mum, Dad and I flew from Ringway to Dublin in a DC3 to my uncle's wedding in Dublin.

 

The first solo trips I remember were between Loughborough Central and Nottingham Victoria from the age of about 8 when visiting my grandparents.  One day I dropped my ticket while getting on the train at Loughborough and it ended up under the train!  When I arrived at Nottingham I found the ticket collector at the barrier had been told what had happened so I didn't have a problem.

 

My earliest solo trip in Europe was at the age of 14.  Dad dropped me at Newhaven, from there I went on the ferry to Dieppe, train to Paris where I met one of the friends (he was about 16) I was going to stay with and then overnight on the train to Albi (near Toulouse).  On the way back I did the journey completely by myself.  Fortunately after a month in Albi I could speak French quite well which made the journey easier - my friends I had stayed with would only reply if I spoke to them in French while I was staying with them.

 

My earliest memory of being on a train (actually a loco) was at the age of about 3 when I was taken onto the footplate of a loco at Nottingham Victoria while Dad was taking photos.  

 

David

 

Edited August 28, 2021 by DaveF

[caradoc]

My first solo train journey was at the relatively ancient age of 12, when my parents kindly agreed (and paid) for me, at the end of a family holiday, to be dropped at Worcester and travel home to Oxford. This was summer 1972 and I clearly recall seeing the first 08 3000 outside Shrub Hill, but stupidly I did not record the loco on the train home, quite possibly a Hymek. 

[phil_sutters]

I am not sure when I started to come home from boarding school in Leatherhead on my own. Dad used to take me via Bristol and Paddington to Waterloo where we met a school teacher, along with other pupils for the journey to school. The way home avoided London all together - Leatherhead, changing at Effingham Junction, Guildford, Woking, Templecombe and Evercreech Junction and back to Highbridge. I think that I was probably about fourteen or fifteen.

Later I did start to travel on my own both ways, making sure that I stopped off at W&H on arrival at Paddington.

My first railway portrait was when I was about five.

Edited August 28, 2021 by phil_sutters

[eastglosmog]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Snip...........
Wireless, as in radio, more likely. Tesla first demonstrated it using a model boat before 1900 IiRC, and I think it was fairly ordinary for model planes by 1964.

 

........................

 

 

 

 

 

Wireless for certain, the RN had wireless controlled aircraft - the Queen Bee for anti - aircraft training in the 1930s and wireless controlled target ships  (Agamemnon and Centurion) in the 1920s.

[eastwestdivide]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

*The internet claims that these first came out in 1978 and cost £1.80 for a child. Neither is true: they were available a lot earlier, and cost 12/- or 60p for an adult initially IIRC.

Wanderbus - Maidstone & District and East Kent combined rover bus tickets - certainly before 1978. Me and my younger sister had a day out unaccompanied in Canterbury from Medway (there was a special one a day through bus) some time around 1972-75, no later. Think I was in big school but she may not, putting our ages at maybe 10 and 13. 

[lanchester]

A couple of memories. Spring of 1966, unaccompanied trip Newcastle to Aviemore, changing at Waverley, to join Scottish relatives ski-ing. Copped 'Kingfisher' at Perth, also a J37 somewhere south of there (what an impressive machine, and I say that as a lover of J27s). I would have been 9 at the time. Shamefully, I was perhaps more interested in the 'Type 2's, both BRCW and NBL - A4s I knew, and an 0-6-0 is an 0-6-0, but these diesels were definitely out of my comfort zone. Uncle Sandy would take us down from our boarding house (a Mrs Kennedy, whose High Tea crockery was, strangely, all 'a souvenir of Devon') to see the London sleeper go through, double headed by any random pairing of Type 2s.

 

Slightly later, 1969 and my last summer term at a prep school near Castle Howard, Yorks. We were allowed our bikes in that term, but with kid brother at school, and two trunks to get home to County Durham, no space for my bike at end of term. So, cycle to Malton, train to York, change for Durham and cycle 8 miles home (which place you can guess from my moniker). Just one snag - someone forgot it was the Durham Miner's Gala! Wheeling a bike the wrong way through that lot in a 'posh' boy's school uniform was, how shall I say, interesting!

 

But from around 1964 when I was say 7, it was quite normal to get the bus into Consett (for 9Fs), or Durham (Wharton Park, or South end of the up platform underneath the 'parachute' water crane), or if aged relatives had been generous with their half-crowns (the last proper money) then getting a train on to Newcastle, East end platform 9/10 usually. Darlington once or twice too.  Limitations were certainly not parental - more financial!

 

Around 1970 so I'd have been perhaps 13, my mate Ian Lawson and I were spotting at Newcastle Central. Miserable dreich day, and we were flush (it may have been just after Christmas, perhaps,) so we went for the table d'hote in the station restaurant - 10 bob for three courses, but coffee was I think a shilling extra. Snooty waiter enquires whether we are sure we can afford to pay. We tipped him sixpence, as the lowest figure we could think of that would be suitably insulting!

[Nearholmer]

33 minutes ago, eastwestdivide said:

Wanderbus - Maidstone & District and East Kent combined rover bus tickets

It’s very curious, because that’s what I read elsewhere, but we lived in Southdown territory, and could buy them - maybe because the long route was a shared operation with M&D. Southdown had their own version, called Busranger I think, and NBC eventually rationalised them into one under the wanderbus name, but I’d pretty much moved entirely to cycling by then - more route flexibility! Anyway, these tickets were definitely around from c1970.

[Chris M]

My dad used to travel by himself from Birmingham to Perranporth and back every summer from age 7. This was back in the early 1930s. He was sent there for the school summer holidays to stay with relatives. I’m told he had a label on him saying to send him to Perranporth. I’ve not heard any stories of problems, and of course he survived. He was waved off from Snow Hill by his mom and dad and collected at Perranporth by his relatives. He would have been on a through train to Penzance and relied on the guard to put him off at the right station for the branch train. I guess that would have been Chacewater or it might have been Truro. Certainly a very long journey for such a little one.

[Nearholmer]

As I said: unaccompanied luggage.

 

The evacuation experience, even simply being aware of it, may have conditioned the thinking of postwar parents, confirming the safety of unaccompanied rail travel to them.

[TheQ]

Early 1970s, Car to Ferry to bus to ferry to train to bus.. journey time about 9 to 10 hours.

 

No adults, except for the car bit at the start, this was on the way to my school and back at the start and end of each term. As the journey progressed more children would join the trip to the council hostel for children who lived where there weren't suitable schools.

 

Dad during ww2 was no older than 9 by the end of the war. Would be sent from Aldershot my grandparents married quarters, to Ludgershall, Wiltshire my great grandparents home, requiring two changes of train.

This would be for the summer holidays each year,  On the return journey dad would carry contraband.. the great grandparents kept pigs, and a large portion would be accompanied by Dad to my grandma who looked after the accommodation for the ENSA stars at Aldershot.

 

His three older brothers were in or about to be in the army or air force during WW2, Dad was the only one of school age throughout the war and the younger brother was born after WW2.

Edited August 28, 2021 by TheQ

[Nick_Burman]

My father was dispatched to a boarding school (Rossall near Blackpool) at age 12. From then until he went off to Uni at age 18 he used to travel unaccompanied every holiday back home, first to Leeds and later to Portishead. I don't remember the details, but I think that the school used to take students down to Blackpool Central by bus, then place them on trains to their destinations. One detail that I do remember him telling was that he was given an envelope, hung on his neck, with the tickets and contact details, and that he was "passed down the line" by guards and porters. Again, I can't remember the routing, but I think it was Blackpool - B'ham - Bristol TM. At Blackpool, a school rep would likely hand him (and probably other students also) to the guard, who would install them in a compartment where he could keep an eye on them. At Birmingham he would be handed to a platform porter who would then shepherd him to the right platform and hand him to another porter who would make sure he got on to the right train. My grandmother would then collect him at Bristol TM for the last leg - usually by bus (heresy! But it was more convenient given the fact that they lived in the Redcliffe Bay area, away from the station) but occasionally by train.

 

Cheers NB

Edited August 28, 2021 by Nick_Burman

[2E Sub Shed]

First rail trip Aged 11, School Speech Day &  year 1 was not required to attend. So I used saved pocket money to purchase a Child Cheap Day Return, Northampton to Bletchley  to see what ran on the real WCML rather than the Northampton Loop.

 

As this was well into term time, possibly not unsurprising that me and my Ian Allan ABC (plus sandwiches) on the platforms attracted the interest of a British Transport Police Officer. 

 

 

 

 

 

[ngtrains.com]

School summer holidays from around the age of 8 (1968) I used to be put on a train, class 120 DMU, with my bike at Derby Midland heading for Collingham and several weeks with grandparents. I think a word was had with the guard and Nan would meet me at Collingham.

[Nearholmer]

Purely for eastwestdivide and I, I suspect:

 

Have a read of the discussion about ‘wanderbus’ below this photo https://www.flickr.com/photos/semmytrailer/2321433213/

 

 

 

It isn’t as simple even as that complicated tale relates, in that I’ve also found a ‘busranger’ ticket, covering EK, M&D, SD, and B&H, with NBC branding and unspecified date. Seems as if the ‘offering’ and the name were swapped about multiple times during the 1970s.

[xPrime586]

Oxford - Wakefield Westgate. Aged ten, sometime in 1978. I was put on the train by my Grandparents in the wrong portion for Wakefield - iirc the train split at Birmingham New Street. All got sorted, but my Grandmother apparently was in a state of great panic until I turned up at Westgate … the trip was a year before trainspotting became my thing, so no idea about haulage. I did though take an immediate dislike to Birmingham New Street. 
 

Perhaps someone will know where I might have ended up? At a guess, the train originated from Poole.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

I was allowed on local buses on my own from the age of 10 or so, and by train to London and a short trips beyond when I was 11 - I certainly made several trips to Reading (via London) in winter 1976/7 primarily to see the last of the Westerns. By summer 1977 I was travelling all over the country, initially pretenting to my parents that I was only going to London, till they found out I was really going to places like Manchester and Sheffield, and when I was 14 I started having holidays on my own, staying at Youth Hostels.

 

As with Nearholmer, I suspect part of this willingness for me to do my own thing was because my parents didn't particularly want me at home.

 

My main reason for posting in this thread is not really to say what I did, but to say that at the time this did not seem particularly unusual. Okay, so I met few people my age who travelled as widely as I did on their own, but it was quite common to meet other 12 to 14 years olds travelling without any grown ups.

 

Not so long ago (although it must be pre-lockdown), I came across a child, who cannot have been older than 14 and was probably more like 12, travelling on their own on the railway where I am a volunteer. I was the guard, checking tickets before departure., and instinctively avoided this particular compartment expecting the child's parent(s) to appear in due course. As departure time got closer, no parent appeared so I asked the child for their ticket, which was duly presented. One child on their own (tickets usually cover the entire party travelling). It was something of a shock to reflect that this could have been me forty years ago, when I would have thought it perfectly normal, but now it seemed to be something remarkable.

[Nearholmer]

25 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

initially pretenting to my parents that I was only going to London

Ah, yes.

 

In my case, it was obtaining permission to go to the next town, and elasticating that onwards, to include London.

 

I think it might have been when they twigged that’s what I’d been up to, and had returned unscathed, that they sort of gave up on geographical limits, and let my inability to scrape much money together act instead - even then you couldn’t get to Edinburgh or Penzance on a paper boy’s pittance!

[Jeremy Cumberland]

34 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I think it might have been when they twigged that’s what I’d been up to, and had returned unscathed, that they sort of gave up on geographical limits, and let my inability to scrape much money together act instead - even then you couldn’t get to Edinburgh or Penzance on a paper boy’s pittance!

Pocketing my school dinner money and doing without was my source of funds. Dad worked for British Rail so I got priv tickets. I very quickly worked out the financial benefits of split ticketing (that copy of the ABC that WH Smiths never sold was well-thumbed by me, looking up fares), particularly when London was involved, and I also worked out where tickets would be checked. Return halves were valid for one month, and since I was buying privs it wasn't in those days any cheaper buying two singles than one return. But one return and one single was definitely a cheaper way of making two trips to the same place within the month. Later on, when I travelled the country with my parent's blessing, sometimes using my free ticket allocation, these were often inspected and returned unclipped (particularly, it seemed, on the Western Region), so that at the end of the journey my dad could hand them back in "unused".

[Rugd1022]

7 hours ago, xPrime586 said:

Oxford - Wakefield Westgate. Aged ten, sometime in 1978. I was put on the train by my Grandparents in the wrong portion for Wakefield - iirc the train split at Birmingham New Street. All got sorted, but my Grandmother apparently was in a state of great panic until I turned up at Westgate … the trip was a year before trainspotting became my thing, so no idea about haulage. I did though take an immediate dislike to Birmingham New Street. 
 

Perhaps someone will know where I might have ended up? At a guess, the train originated from Poole.

 

Not sure where your detour may have taken you but it's a fair bet that you had a 47 from Oxford to New St then a Peak from there, until you eventually arrived in Wakefield.

 

I've just remembered another early solo expedition of mine - I was nine and told my parents I was going to Coventry to get a train down to Oxford and no further, but I carried on and spent the entire day at Paddington watching Westerns, 31s, 47s, 50s and the last handful of Hymeks. This included a light engine trip down to Old Oak and back up to Padd with empty stock on D1072. I didn't get back to Rugby until almost midnight and caught a severe rollicking for my troubles. Happy care free days indeed!