AOSA ANNUAL REPORT 1999

This Magazine Contents

All Magazines Contents

Dorothy Newby boarded the train at Sunderland on May 23rd and was joined at Darlington by Mary Banks. We were on our way to spend a weekend with Margaret Ramsdale (Waites). The journey passed pleasantly and the trains were on time. We arrived at Altrincham where we had been instructed that on no account must we leave the station, but the platform was empty. No Margaret!

A helpful Porter offered to locate her but first he put a message over the tannoy, ‘If there is a Mrs. Ramsdale in the station, please report to the Booking Office’. No response. He said, ‘I’ll go over the bridge. What does she look like?’ 

Mary, ‘I don’t know. We haven’t seen her for sixty years’. That made him laugh.

For the next forty minutes he ran backwards and forwards across the bridge to the far platform and twice rang her home. Mary joked, ‘Perhaps she has changed her mind and doesn’t want us’.

Then, hurray! We saw a figure waving to us. Margaret had been waiting on the Metro platform but we had travelled on Regional Railways.

Margaret: ‘A friend brought me and he’s in his car at the front’.

Porter: ‘I’ll go and tell him to come to the car park at the back. What’s his registration number? Understandably, she did not know.
Porter: ‘What colour is his car?’
Margaret: ‘Bluish’.
Porter: ‘What’s his name?’
Margaret: ‘Neville’.
Off the Porter went.
Margaret to us: ‘He won’t find him there. He’s parked down the street outside Rackmans. I’ll go and get him’.
Off Margaret went.
Porter came back: ‘He’s not there’.
‘No’, we said, ‘He’s outside Rackmans’.
Porter: ‘If he parked there the Police would soon move him on’.
We waited. Had the car been wheel-clamped?
Porter: ‘When are you going home?’
‘Tuesday’.
‘Then I’m taking the day off, he laughed. 
A man appeared from the nearby Booking Office. ‘And I’m taking the week off’, he said.
We all laughed and laughed.

Margaret and friend arrived and our wonderful reunion began. The remainder of the day was spent in looking at photographs and talking, talking, talking.

On Sunday morning, we sat on Mary’s bed for almost two hours reminiscing and, after a late breakfast, went to Dunham Massey, a National Trust property where Margaret had worked for eleven years. Then another evening of talk and laughter.

On Monday morning, Mary, who has green fingers, did some gardening whilst Dorothy dozed in a chair (she did this several times over the weekend) and then we went out to lunch. Hale is a beautiful area with tree-lined avenues, which are a delight, that is, except for the sleeping policemen! Mary was sitting in the back of the car and each time we went at speed over one, she bumped her head on the roof of the car. This caused much merriment.

Tuesday saw us back at the station where we made our way to the Booking Office to ask for assistance with our luggage. Throughout the weekend, Margaret had said she was sure that our Porter had one arm but, as Mary pointed out, how could he have carried two cases? When the Porter came, he had his sleeves rolled up - two strong arms! As he put our cases on to the train and waved us off, he laughed and said, ‘If you come again, get a taxi. What a pleasant, helpful man he was.

What a weekend! We hadn’t laughed so much in years. It was a wonderful reunion. We enjoyed Margaret’s friendship and delightful home and Mary was thrilled to see a fox streak across the lawn. We hope that it will not be long before we all meet again.

Mary Banks &
Dorothy Newby (Danby)

This Magazine Contents | All Magazines Contents
Return Homepage