The great British Drink

[Compo 10,328]

Here's a magazine article I chanced upon this morning. It is about 'Railway Tea' and I think it relevant to this thread. It contains references to the Royal Train tea and an odd coincidence that 'Pixie' might find of some special interest. it might also be suitable for the "Transport" forum but I don't know how to tag or link it:

<Quote>

The tea ceremony – in steam days the railway ran on brews of all shades!

In recent issues of Steam World, Editor Chris Leigh and contributor David Maidment have both told us that they do not like tea. I am sorry for them. The days when I was learning the ropes on BR, the railway would have ground to a halt without it, and I enjoyed many cups of widely varied strength and colour!

I was a frequent guest on locomotives and in signalboxes from 1958 until the end of BR steam ten years later, often at Kensington (Olympia) in West London, which was the daily meeting place for transfers of trains between three of London's four regions, the Western, Midland and Southern. (The Eastern Region, serving mainly Kings Cross and Liverpool Street Stations, was the odd man out - its trains were very rare visitors to that side of London.)

I spent many hours at Olympia, riding on locomotives from all three regions while they shunted - always without any official permission. My experiences were thus of everyday railway operation, without an escorting inspector - whose presence might well have cramped everyone's normal style, and in my case would have prevented the many occasions when I was allowed to drive the engine or work the 'box.

Every signalbox on the railway - at least, every one with any prospect of external visitors - had a large black kettle permanently on the boil, ready for train crew members wanting to make tea. It was the custom for the fireman to go off to the 'box to do so, but quite often the driver would volunteer to go instead. He would leave his mate to do the driving while shunting, dropping off the footplate with the tea can and ingredients when the locomotive passed the 'box. We would stop to pick him up a few minutes later when a move took us back nearby. He would reach up from ground level and place a steaming can on the footplate, then climb up and put it on any convenient surface, while he delved in his shoulder bag to get the sugar and milk - usually kept in a small flat bottle which had probably once contained some cosmetic of his wife's.

The tea cans were metal, and varied by region. Midland and Southern crews normally had the 'traditional' slightly tapered white enamel can with a matching lid, with handle, which served as a cup. (These were quite often called a 'bait can' in the North). But the Western - as so often - was different. A retired driver with a bent for metal work had set up his own cottage industry and cornered the market; he advertised in the WR Staff Magazine. Nearly everyone had one of his cans, cylindrical with a flat metal lid and in a steel or bronze-coloured finish.

Common to all types of can was a wire handle, and the tea maker would finally mix the tea by leaning outside the cab and whirling the can (with lid in place) in a great circle. This had the advantage - in those days before tea bags - of forcing the tea leaves to the bottom of the can. Careful pouring would leave them there - otherwise they had to be strained with one's teeth! I did hear the tale once of a handle parting company with a full can, which sailed away in a graceful arc over the roofs of adjacent vans, fortunately without hitting anyone. What an epitaph that would have produced - 'slain by a tea can while shunting'!

The tea made, it would ceremoniously be offered round; several restaurant car teacups were to be found on any engine, wrapped in newspaper and stored in the corner of a tool locker. After the first helping, the can would normally go onto the oil shelf above the fire door, and stay there for the rest of the shift. On my first footplate trip at express speed - an alarming experience - on April 21 1961, I was reassured by seeing the fireman of Bulleid 'West Country' 4-6-2 34003 Plymouth take a 'lid' of tea from the can sitting on that shelf, and drink it calmly while standing with his back to the fire, at well over 80mph with a down Basingstoke semi-fast from Waterloo. I was sitting on his seat holding tightly on to the frame of the cab side window, wondering nervously if we were going to hold the road while we rattled and banged through the crossings of Weybridge station. Part of the fun of having tea made by the senior man was to make an appreciative comment I learned early that it usually raised a smile to sit back at ease and say 'Ah, driver's tea!' in the tones of a serious connoisseur. Doing this once led to an amusing story. I can date the occasion exactly - it was on March 211959, the day that Oxo won the Grand National. I was on the footplate of a rather scruffy Black Five 4-6-0 which had brought the empty stock of the Royal Train, no less, into Kensington (Olympia) to hand it over the WR, which was no doubt going to run a 'Grove' or 'Deepdene' (telegraphic codes for the Royal Train) the next day. Old Oak Common had rostered a well-cleaned 61xx 2-6-2T to collect the empty stock and take it back to the carriage sidings there - and on the smokebox it was wearing the correct three character GWR-style train reporting code for this train of 'XOO'. The loco crew re-arranged them to read 'OXO', as what turned out to be a correct forecast of that afternoon's surprise result at Aintree.

Anyhow, while the immaculate coaches were still coupled to the Midland engine which had brought it from the depot at Wolverton, its Willesden driver had been off to Kensington South Main 'box to make the tea. As we drank it, I made my usual comment, and this - in the well-worn phrase - 'reminded him of a story'. I will try to recapture it as I remember him telling it all those years ago:

"The last time I was on this job we were stopped for quite a long time at Watford. So some inspector comes poncing along the platform and looks up into the cab. 'Oh Driver,' he says, 'everything all right up there?'

'Yes Mate, we're alright up here; are you alright back in the train - have you made the tea?' 'Oh ... yes,' said the Inspector, a bit flummoxed.

'Well, get us a can, then' - and off he went up the platform, wishing he hadn't asked. Anyway, he come back quite soon with a steaming hot can, so I took it and put in the milk, then we sat down to have a cuppa.' Here the driver lifted his cup to his lips and mimicked what happened next. 'I took a sip - and spat it out ... it was squirrel's p***!'

Thus our friend dismissed what had no doubt been some of the Queen's finest China tea - but not quite the norm on a BR footplate!"

Chris Tanous. <end quote>

Credit: Steam World magazine Issue 298 P25 April 2012

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Takes me back to the electric shop at Clifton Colliery, there was a "home made" water boiler, made from old boiler pipes fattened out and brazed together and fitted with an immersion heater. There was a cold water tap over the top to keep it topped up.

It was ALWAYS switched on and boiling merrily away for anyone wanting to make a cuppa.

The shop lads used a mash can or two to make their tea near snap time, and we U/G lads at the end of a shift would make a quick cuppa, dropping some loose tea measured in the palm of the hand into a canteen mug, and using Nestles condensed milk, and our first fag after several hours plus O/T U/G... Ahhhhhh it was pure dizzy heaven, that first fag always made me dizzy!

Often makes me wonder why we were addicted to nicotine!! Never bothered me while U/G knowing I wasn't allowed to smoke, yet the urge grew stronger once on the cage and riding up, until hitting daylight I was dying for a fag, and a cuppa too.

[mick2me 3,033]

Reminds me of the wooden huts we sat in on building sites for our snap.

Always cosy and warm in the winter. And has a particular nice smell.

At the end of break time the site foreman would kick the door open and

say in a deep voice... "Reeaady!" which meant back to work.

10am 12:30pm and 3pm were keenly awaited.

Wind down time with shop visits were probably

around 20-30 mins for the morning and lunch breaks

[mudgie49 401]

Remember those 'site huts' Mick, in the winter months,they always seemed to be in the middle of an ocean of thick churned up mud.

The white or blue enameled metal "mash can".

This is real Nottstalgia,both the above are either in memories or museums.

[dgbrit 258]

Nothing better than tea made with water from real lead pipes & the cups wiped dry with some old rag/roller towel that had been used on just about everything else by 28 people .Once they got rid of the lead pipes never touched tea anymore.

[mudgie49 401]

Derek, I am becoming a little concerned about you. Stay out of the sun today'there's a good lad'

[dgbrit 258]

It was either the lead or the DDT that got me

Anyone know what DDT was for

Was it for the Boils or Carbunckles

Jucy subject coming up

[mudgie49 401]

It was a cheap, non-perfumed talcum powder, not recommended for continual use around the 'wedding tackle' area.

[mudgie49 401]

Dereks Deadly Tea, this will put "lead" in your pencil.

[Paulus 541]

Remember those 'site huts' Mick, in the winter months,they always seemed to be in the middle of an ocean of thick churned up mud.

The white or blue enameled metal "mash can".

This is real Nottstalgia,both the above are either in memories or museums.

As a lad (apprentice lol) we used to mash tea, in a mash can, we would swing the mash can around in big circles, by it's handle to speed up the process, and keep the tea leaves at the bottom of the can..................my first encounter of centrifugal force, although I din't understand at the time

[Compo 10,328]

Ayupmeduks: I know what you mean about the underground fag ban. Been there myself - as soon as you hit the daylight (shift permitting) the cravings came back and had to be satiated at all costs. I was so bad that one day I even swapped a new spanner for a couple of Parkie plain! Managed to give up in 1985 and now all is well.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

I gave up about ten yours before you then, a few months before I started at Boulby Mine in North Yorks..

[.... 23]

Tea wins mostly but maybe we need a coffee thread too?

[mudgie49 401]

I'll drink to that Stu, coffee and 'Dunkin Donuts', sounds perfect ,'cheers'mate.

[katyjay 5,091]

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, ......oops, got carried away there. Long ago, when my mother in law first retired, she'd meet up with a co-worker in town for a mooch around. They'd go in the cafe in Littlewoods for a pot of tea. Milly, my m-i-law's friend, when she'd finished with the tea, would open the pot, and with a spoon, would rip the tea bags apart, saying, they won't use these buggers agen!

[jackson 301]

Full marks to a shrewd woman! Makes you think that . . . .

[Michael Booth 7,364]

katyjay, that was so funny. I can envisage your mother-in-law attacking the teabags.

[Michael Booth 7,364]

I should have said 'Your mother-in-law's friend'.

[katyjay 5,091]

This same couple of ladies would go to the Kingfisher fish and chip cafe at the bottom of Hockley for their dinner, and ask for 'the biggest haddock you've got, I want it hanging off both sides of the plate' and they got it too.

[jackson 301]

I wished I'd been with them; they sound like ladies who didn't stand for no messing about!

[Compo 10,328]

Do I see 'double entendres' in there Katyjay?

[katyjay 5,091]

Oooh, ya mucky thing.

[Compo 10,328]

[dgbrit 258]

in the late 60s I bought some apples that looked very nice on the display on the way out i opened the bag & the apples were all bruised so i went back to the counter & said i want what is on display , The reply was they are not for sale & im not going to get stuck with a bunch of rotten apples someone has to have them.