Wild Swan Books
Swindon Engineman
Gordon Shurmer & Mike Fenton
Hardback - 246 pages - £35.95
Contents- Swindon Born and Bred
- First Rungs on the Ladder
- Wartime Promotions
- Christmas Day on the MSWJ
- Postwar Austerity
- Driver Bill Hinder
- In Charge at Last
- History of Swindon's Loco Sheds
This book sets out to record Gordon Shurmer's footplate experiences, the turns he worked in each link and the running of Swindon shed. It is a collaborative effort, which has taken a number of years with Mike Fenton transcribing many hours of taped conversations and interrogation to provide an invaluable record of railway work. The book also contains a brief history of Swindon engine sheds.
Gordon was one of the great stalwarts of Swindon's railway past. He represents the last of a tough breed of men who began their careers on the old Great Western before the Second World War and whose working life straddled the years of great change. Born in the town in 1921, he started work on the Great Western Railway in 1936 and rose through the ranks to become a top link engineman and a well-respected tutor driver on British Railways Western Region before he retired from the railway in 1986.
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