Enfield, The Station c.1945

Photo ref: E179001

When I was about ten years old or so I remember going to Liverpool St. station lots of times on the steam train with my dad. We would leave Enfield town about 4 a.m. to do the buying at Spitalfields and Covent Garden markets for our greengrocery shop. On the days we took the train the produce would be delivered to our shop by lorry later that morning. The huge steam engine would chug and puff out big steam clouds across the platform.

I remember one day I was with my mother just walking to the station to get the train to Bush Hill Park where we lived and hearing the loud Putt Putt noise of a doodle bug.We and all the people around looked up and watched it fly over us to the vicinity of Enfield Highway descending rapidly,then the silence as the engine stopped,everyone waiting for the bang. I heard that it dropped on a school but I cannot be sure.

If I was out with my mother in the town as a small boy in the 1950s, I would pester to go to the station to see the steam trains through the railings. The journey home would take us up Windmill Hill past Enfield Chase station, but you couldn't get as near the engines there.

A nice shot of Enfield Town Station, at the side of the station was the engine shed. I started work at for British Railways Enfield Town as an engine cleaner in 1953 and later became a fireman. We worked the steam trains from Enfield to Liverpool Street using type N7 0-6-2 Tank engines. Your photograph shows the station just the same as it was in 1953 and looking at it brings back memories.