The day starts well with a software fix from our supplier. This means I spend the morning creating some more content ready to upload to my works server soon after lunchtime. All goes well until it comes to uploading the software and the system reports it will take an hour and five minutes. Not too bad until sixty-five minutes pass and the system still says it will take an extra 50 minutes! The software does not get finally uploaded until well past 4:30, leaving my colleagues little time to prepare the finished product for a client. However, swift work means all is complete by 5:30.
I have got hold of a copy of J.M. Dunn’s Reflections on a Railway Career: LNWR to BR. It was published in 1966 and I’ve managed to get hold of a decent old second-hand copy from the internet. The reason I’ve got the book is 2 chapters on the time he spent at Tredegar Shed at the end of the LNWR period and the start of the successor LMS company (mid 1920s). Further chapters deal with his time in neighbouring South Wales valleys. It is, however, an extraordinary story, starting in 1913 and finishing over 50 years later.
The incredible thing is that leaving school with no qualifications Dunn was taken on into a worthwhile career by simply writing to a railway company. Now, I know that such a thing is still possible today (not necessarily on the railways) – I’ve seen it happen! But in a world where so many people now have degrees, while the number of openings for people to have long careers in living-wage jobs has shrunk, this must be a relative rarity today.
Forget the Rules 