Need some help concerning trains

ChristieFanForLife

I'm writing a story and one particular aspect of the story is that it involves one of the characters taking the train to his place of employment everyday. The story is set in 1930's England but one thing that I'm totally unfamiliar and ignorant with are trains in the aspects of which train on the station leads to where and all that. As I read Agatha Christie's books she so clearly understands it because for one she took trains and two, she lived in England and I haven't experienced trains or even went to London, nevermind talking about living there! Can anyone help me if they could? I know I haven't said much to go out on but some help would sure be great  I've been trying to do some research but so far, no good. Thanks! 

GKCfan

ChristieFanForLife.  I recommend that you go to your local library and try to find (perhaps you may need interlibrary loan) the train histories of O.S.  Nock.  History of the Great Western Railway Volume Three 1923–48, and A History of the LMS, Volumes 1 & 2 may prove very useful.

Good luck with your story!

Griselda

There was a much better train network in England before all sorts of tiny branch lines were closed down during the era of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. These cuts were a response to competition from road transport. Most biggish villages had a line to a nearby market town. What you could do is to read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and to base your topography on the set up they had there. If you remember, there was a busy intersection, even though it was a small place. A character takes a train to Liverpool. you could use the set up in The Sittaford Mystery also. In those days, you would have had a porter who would help you with your luggage, sometimes bringing it along behind you - that is, if you were going away and taking luggage. There would be waiting rooms in the stations of small towns; I believe, one for each sex. The station master would have resided in a little cottage alongside the platform, and would have kept the station area clean and tidy. There would have been window boxes and a little garden outside his cottage, and flowers on the grass borders near the line. The trains were steam driven, so they would have thrown up a lot of sooty smoke. Ladies and gents might have used large handkerchiefs to wipe the soot of their hair, and hats would always have been worn to keep the hair and forehead clean. The station master would have known most people, and would have greeted them as Mr .... or Mrs.... etc.As per The ABC Murders, there was an ABC guide to railways. GKCFan will know, but I think there have been threads on train forums about Agatha Christie novels and railways. 

ChristieFanForLife

Griselda, I just read the reference in The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd in Chapter 2 with the topography of King's Abbot. What I may have to do in my story is set up a fictional English town just like Agatha Christie did. Have an English village and set up a large town about 9 miles or more away just like Dr. Shepherd described when he said: "Our village, King's Abbot, is, I imagine, very much like any other village. Our big town is Cranchester, nine miles away." So what I could do is set up a fictional town, use a large railway station within that town which will take my character to commute to the next town which is about 9 or more miles away. 9 or more miles away would be a perfect length of miles for a person to take a train to commute to work, right? 

ChristieFanForLife

I have a quick question: in an English village would there be a block of expensive flats? My character is a bachelor, is a solicitor and lives in an expensive flat. If he's going to live in an English village, would there be an expensive set of flats? 

GKCfan

Yes, there could be expensive flats.  In "The Case of the Perfect Maid," a former country house is sold and turned into nice flats. (In the 1920's and 1930's many large houses were sold because the owners couldn't afford the upkeep, or taxes and death duties forced a sale– this is a major plotline in Downton Abbey).  Many manor houses and estates were turned into expensive flats, so it's very possible that your character could live in such a flat.

I think that nine miles is an excellent distance for a train commute.  The roads weren't great around some country towns at that time, so it might not be easy driving, and bus service might not have visited some small towns at appropriate times.

There have indeed been threads about trains, but not all of them have gone into historical detail.

Griselda

Hi ChristieFanForLife. There would be no blocks of flats in an English village.A solicitor might well have his own smart detached house, not large, probably, for convenience, on the village high street. It would have had smart iron railings outside, and he would have had a cleaning lady come in, every morning and evening to wash his clothes, clear up, and prepare his meals. It might have been a male housekeeper, as Captain Trevelyan has, in The Sittaford Mystery.  There is the solicitor cousin in Peril at End House, although we are not told much about how he lives. Alternatively,think of the solicitor in Sleeping Murder who lived with his mother. This set up would complicate things for you, as you'd have to make a mother character, but the notion of a 'mummy's boy' like the solicitor in SM, who didn't care for modern women, and whose mother spoilt him, as he says, is an interesting one. There is the solicitor in The Moving Finger also. He is married, of course. Often, middle class people, such as solicitors, would have inherited property from distant aunts and uncles. You see in The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side and Mrs McGinty's Dead, what was happening to English villages in the 1950s and later. They were being extended to provide housing for a growing population, some of whom would commute. Small collections of bungalows were being built on the edge of the villages to provide more housing. You see this too when Poirot visit the dead girl's parents in The ABC Murders. This trend was linked to the change in the social order following the 1939- 1945 Second World War. Wealth was being re-distributed by government taxation (as characters are always bemoaning - see the jewel thief's mother in Death on the Nile whose finances dwindled owing to taxation). The gentry (that is people who were, in a distant sense, related to those with a title - Lord, Lady etc -they would send their children to private school)were having to sell their big houses as they could not afford to keep them on. Their servants were finding work in shops and factories, as he vicar's serving girl was hoping to do in Murder at the Vicarage. The new bungalows were homes for this new social group whose members would, had they lived thirty years earlier, worked in he big country houses belonging to members of the gentry. In Dead Man's Folly, there is a good deal of narrative about the decline of the old order, and all the big houses in the area being sold off to be turned into schools or hotels. So up until about 1945, the country village grew up around the big house. It would have a blacksmith, a bakery, a butcher, a grocer and a post office, a couple of pubs, but little else. Some of the cottages in the village, in which the farm labourers worked, would have been owned and rented out by the squire of the big house, and he may well have owned and rented out some of the farms in the area, which, would really be belonging to him, and on his land. For a description of a bigger town, maybe look at Mrs McGinty's Dead. The Moving Finger has some good description of a small town.

ChristieFanForLife

GKCfan said:

Yes, there could be expensive flats.  In "The Case of the Perfect Maid," a former country house is sold and turned into nice flats. (In the 1920's and 1930's many large houses were sold because the owners couldn't afford the upkeep, or taxes and death duties forced a sale– this is a major plotline in Downton Abbey).  Many manor houses and estates were turned into expensive flats, so it's very possible that your character could live in such a flat.

I think that nine miles is an excellent distance for a train commute.  The roads weren't great around some country towns at that time, so it might not be easy driving, and bus service might not have visited some small towns at appropriate times.

There have indeed been threads about trains, but not all of them have gone into historical detail.

Do you think a solicitor could live in such a flat or should I give my character a new profession that is more realistic and true to a living situation of a small English village in a former country house that is turned and converted into expensive flats? 

Tommy_A_Jones

ChristieFanForLife Did you watch he last Julia Bradbury series? The reason I am asking is that it had her going on walks and in the 1st one she was in the Cotswolds and there was this House which was owned by someone but then it was bought by a Developer who turned it into 8 Flats, which reminded me of the The Flat's That Poirot Visited which had The Little Girl and Foreign Au Pair in 'The Clocks' you could have Flats like that were a Gig House but were turned into Flats by a Developer, I personally wouldn't get too hung up on whether something is plausible as I was saying on Facebook yesterday you should have a bit of implausibility in Detective Fiction.

Griselda

Hi ChristieFanForLife, just to help,  bear in mind when you are writing the story and naming buildings, place etc,  that in English idiom a block of flats practically always refers to a purpose-built structure of many storeys - such as the one in which Poirot lived. Any block of three storeys or lower is always be referred to as a small block. A country house divided into flats would be named today and right back to the 1930s as a conversion: a country house conversion. The word 'block' would not be used in this context. A block suggests a tall symetrical structure.  It is my opinion that a solicitor would be unlikely to live in a conversion flat. Solicitors had quite a good deal of status, and wealth accumulated in the course of their practice, and to retain this status they would usually choose to live in a house which appeared substantial. Often, they would have a place in their small community (along with the vicar, the doctor - but below the squire). Also, I think that they would have been rich in the first place in order to have been able to train for the law. I think flats, and the small bungalows which Captain Trevelyan built, for instance, in The Sittaford Mystery would usually go to people in a degree of distress. In The Sittaford Mystery, the occupants  of the bungalows are people returning from the colonies, or those with ailments, or those not in the top professions. I hope these opinions are helpful, but you might want to google the question about flats, and see if anything else comes up.

Griselda

A solicitor who didn't own the practice, but who was training, or acting as an assistant solicitor, might live in a conversion.

ChristieFanForLife

Thanks Griselda! You've been a big help. I think I'll make my main character an assistant solicitor instead. Instead of having him live in a country house conversion flat (I'll keep in my notes what you told me for future reference) I'll have him live in a London flat up in Piccadilly like Dorothy L. Sayers did with Lord Peter Wimsey. I'm sure even though an assistant solicitor works on a fixed salary they can still purchase nice things.....oh, why not, I'll give him a little bonus from his job. I would still love for my main character to live in an expensive, luxurious flat!

Griselda

That sounds wonderful - the London flat!! Lot's of people received inheritances, in those days. I remember that Theresa and her brother, in Dumb Witness, spent money from their inheritance  on nice clothes, and possessions and going out.  Major Blunt, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, had received one too. A bonus from a grateful employer sounds really right for the times: one can just imagine the relationship, and the sort of dedicated and gifted person your main character would be. There is some good description of flats, and concierges, etc, in Third Girl, isn't there? also in Three Act Tragedy.

ChristieFanForLife

If my character is going to have a flat up in Piccadilly I have to see where his place of employment would be but I would like for it to be of some distance so he can take a train. Because it's in the train that the story is going to get things going a bit 

Griselda

Sounds brilliant!  On the line going west from Paddington there is Reading and Swindon, both fair- sized towns - and just a straight journey, with no changes. The line goes on to Bath and then Bristol - quite a long commute, but people do it. About 1 hour 40 minutes to Bath now from Paddington - not sure if it would have been the same then.. I will try to do some research and let you know of anything I find out.

ChristieFanForLife

Griselda said:

 I will try to do some research and let you know of anything I find out.

Thank you!

Griselda

I found out that the Great Western Railway operated the line from London Paddington to Bristol from 1835 - 1948. On the centenary of the setting up of the company, in 1935, the company launched a special train called The Bristolian which ran the route. The stops were from Paddington, Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Chippenham, Bath, Bristol. The service did go on to Wales, but that would be a bit long for a commute. There was a fast and direct service from Paddington to Bristol in the 1930s, taking 105 minutes, but I am not sure how long the service would have taken, at that time, on the journeys which had been scheduled to make stops along the way. I will see if I can find out where to look for such information. Swindon station was also home to a large depot for repairing the engines and coaches belonging to the Great Western Railway. The company's engines were usually Brunswick green in colour, and the passenger coaches were chocolate and cream. The steam engines would have thrown up soot and smuts. There would have been restaurant cars, and steam heating. I hope we get a chance to read the story when it is written!

ChristieFanForLife

I'm still working on my short story but one of my characters is a bachelor in his mid-30s, loves the single life, and doesn't believe in marriage and has no plans of getting married. But I was wondering if there are any books (or if anyone knows any or where I could find information like this) by an author (well known would be better--if not that's okay) who writes a book about the disadvantages of marriage, a book where the author expresses disbelief and disdain for marriage. The story takes place in the mid-1930's in England but I would like to express some clue, some hint that would give away that the story is set during this time, so it could have more credibility. 

Thank you

GKCfan

The central character in Shaw's Man and Superman speaks highly of the single life for a while.  A number of Shavian bachelors have some famous quotes that could be cited by your character.

ChristieFanForLife

GKCfan said:

The central character in Shaw's Man and Superman speaks highly of the single life for a while.  A number of Shavian bachelors have some famous quotes that could be cited by your character.

Do you know of any non-fictional books during that time period that speaks highly against the idea of marriage? I would like my character to reference it in my story.

GKCfan

They're not all non-fiction, but there's William Blake's Visions of the Daughters of Albion, the utopian socialism writings of Fournier and Saint-Simon, and Victoria Woodhull's book Free Lover.

Annika

@ChristieFanForLife If you want an excellent example of train navigation in that time period I highly recommend The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers. So many trains and timetables...

ChristieFanForLife

Annika said:

@ChristieFanForLife If you want an excellent example of train navigation in that time period I highly recommend The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers. So many trains and timetables...

Yeah because I know nothing about train time tables and what destination they lead to. And I want my stories to be authentic.