On a sun-drenched Sunday in the mid 1960s I was furiously cycling along a footpath that followed the railway line.

I saw a gang of men sitting around on the railway embankment, just about to start their lunch break.

I instantly recognised one as the father of my friend and, in those days, politeness meant I had to break sharply dismount from my bike and say hello. I always liked Mick, he was a generous Irishman who would tell us totally non PC jokes about the Irish.

He beckoned to me to come and join him and his gang.

His gang were “platelayers” who were responsible for track maintenance or keeping the “permanent way open.”

They had just completed a heavy morning’s work “packing.” This was a regular practice to lift the track, which had “slumped” (dipped) down due to the ballast that the rails and sleepers sit on either shaking out, compacting or washing away in heavy rains.

The packing lifted the track back to its uniform height.

This was laborious as the rails would have to be jacked up and the old ballast loosened with picks and dragged out with shovels before fresh clean ballast could be shovelled in to fill the gaps. As they sat there eating their “snap” and drinking lids of tea from their brew cans, some had cold camp coffee in bottles and Mick gave me an orange.

Some lit cigarettes and chatted amongst themselves.

One old chap wore a white armband on his arm with the word lookout upon it, showed me the “klaxon or horn” he had to sound when a train approached to warn the gang to get out of the way. He told me the gang were grateful when this happened as it was the only time they could straighten their backs.

The gang, jesting with him, told him to stop making so much noise as they wanted some shuteye.

He smiled at me and winked and then took out his pipe and cut a piece of tobacco off his “twist” and then packed it in the pipe and began smoking it while resting on his left elbow.

He asked me my age and told me he was not much older than me when just before the Great War as a 12-year-old he had started work on the railway, as a “chain lad” his job was to assist the surveyors with measuring existing tracks and laying out new tracks or sidings.

He said this was good as he would make tea and run errands for them and, with the generosity of the surveyors, some weeks his pay of two and six could be made up to four bob (20p), a princely sum in those days. I still remember the glint in his eye as he told me the tale.

After the First World War he had then joined the permanent way gang and had been with them ever since.

He was retiring at Christmas and would miss the gang that were like brothers to him. Proudly he told me they could change a broken rail in less than four minutes, which was done by removing eight bolts and 18 keys (blocks) then lift the rail in and out of the chairs, before refitting all the bolts and keys.

He told me that it was a great job walking up and down the track looking for faults except when you were ankle deep all day in slush!

His eyes looking misty his weathered faced then cracked with a warm smile and he offered me a pear drop from a cone shaped bag, saying they had to get back to work.

I rode off, happily sucking on the pear drop.