I STARTED on the railway in 1979 as a freight guard at Doncaster Carr locomotive shed.

I became a local National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) representative not long afterwards and remember looking in awe at the Aslef reps at Carr loco at the time.

I am talking about people like Martin Samways, Jack Housley, Martin Hicks, Mala Haith, Jim Leach and George Porritt — people who seemed to me, as a teenager, like giants.

Physically, they were giants, compared with me at the time, but as I got to know them better and spent time with them, I realised that they were intellectual giants, and giants of the trade union movement as well. They lived and breathed and spoke politics — usually over a pint or two in the Trade Union and Labour Club.

The depot at Donny was run by Aslef — this was in British Rail’s time — where Aslef dictated what happened.

They took the argument to management, day in and day out, proceeding, moving forward and not waiting for management to come and attack them.

I was so proud to know those people. When I became a driver and a member of Aslef, I hope the lessons they taught me gave me a good base to do what I could for the union.

Because when I joined the railway in 1979, I was a member of the NUR.

Obviously this was because I was a freight guard. It’s the right thing to be in the right trade union for the job that you do. And the right trade union for a train driver is, as it has been since 1880, and as it always will be, Aslef.

We had a full-time officer in the NUR at that time who, I think it’s fair to say, wasn’t very keen on me.

He didn’t like me very much. I can understand some of it because I had long hair, I would turn up to meetings on my Harley-Davidson, I had ragged jeans, I had oil under my fingernails — in fact, I was a mess — and he didn’t like that.

But through those Aslef reps I got to meet someone who became one of the biggest influences in my life, a man called Bill Ronksley, a former president of Aslef, although at that time he was the full-time officer in District 4.

Maybe Bill saw something in me because he took me under his wing and showed me the way forward. And for that I will be forever grateful to Bill, a giant of Aslef.

I remember visiting the Soviet Union with Bill in 1988 and when, shortly afterwards, he retired, Doncaster branch organised an event for him with three giants on the top table — Ray Buckton, Arthur Scargill and the biggest giant of all, Bill himself.

This year he celebrated his 90th birthday — and 72 years of active membership in Aslef. I think that is something we should all aspire to, and be proud of — that Aslef has delivered giants like that and will continue to do so.

I remember Bill telling me at that time — and this was always his opinion — that if locally you can go and get something better than the national agreement, do it.

Then hopefully other people will catch up, move along and push forward. He believed you didn’t sit waiting for someone to come and attack you. Don’t rest on your laurels, don’t be happy with what you’ve got but aspire and move forward.

Take the argument to management. That was what Bill taught me and it is as true today as it was then.

With an unconventional — to say the least — upbringing I did get some lessons early in life. My mother left when I was three and I was with my father Podge McDonald, a fitter and turner in the plant works at Doncaster.

Podge was a character with his DA hairstyle, love of Manchester United, rock ’n’ roll, Park Drive cigarettes and beer. He never did settle down — no wonder my mother left!

Podge worked the door at the Top Rank in Doncaster in the evenings. I think it gave him the chance to enjoy some of the things he loved, but he also seemed to enjoy a fight even though he suffered from tuberculosis as a teenager and had lost a lung.

I found Podge dead in his bed in 1972. He was 38 years old, and I was 11, and although I can’t say I got any politics from dad, my love of motorbikes, music and beer must have come from somewhere.

My grandparents looked after me after that and I do believe I had a privileged life from then.

My grandad Davie McDonald was born illegitimate in 1907 and had a hard life. He would tell me how the other kids teased him because he had long blond hair and looked like a girl. Eventually his grandmother cut his hair with tears running down her face as she did it.

Davie gave me my first taste of politics. He told me about the 1926 General Strike — he never forgave the Salvation Army for scabbing by driving trucks and doing people’s jobs — and the brutality of the state.

He told me how he became a miner and had to keep moving south for work. He told me about trade unions and the struggle of the workers, the waste of life in the Great War, which he saw as a fallout among privileged cousins, and the war against fascism in Spain in the 1930s and the second world war.

He told me how his half-brother John was captured and tortured by the Japanese and was never able to have children.
I remember my Uncle John visiting and hearing him scream in the night. And I will never forget the bollocking I got from him when, at 16, I got my first (legal) motorbike — a Yamaha FS1E — because it was Japanese.

My grandad told me with pride about the 1945 Labour government and its achievements — nationalising the pits and the railways, building the National Health Service and council houses.

Davie suffered a bad spinal injury when the roof caved in where he was working. He spent a big chunk of his compensation on a greyhound. My gran said he won a fortune on his own dogs and lost it on some other bugger’s horses.

No longer able to work down the pit, he finished his working life with a green card job in the plant works, sweeping up, so that makes me a third-generation railway worker.

In the early 1980s I was living with some fellow petrolheads on Markham Road in the pit village of Edlington. Although none of us were miners, we enjoyed that community.

The front and back gardens were full of choppers (either British or US-made, Uncle John obviously had an impact on me) and the street outside was full of air-cooled VWs (don’t know what he’d have thought about that).

We had some big parties with lots of bikes and loud music and never had any complaints. Folk would come talk about our bikes. We always had a good time in the local pubs and the miner next door kept us in coal during the winter. It was a real community.

Last year was the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike of 1984-5, and I attended a number of commemorations. But the most moving for me was the one in Edlington.

Yorkshire Main shut in 1985 and, like many pit villages, the whole community suffered. The pubs we used to go in are no longer there, the shops are boarded up.

As a freight guard, after the pit shut I worked a train out of that pit (probably the last one) made up of faulty wagons that had been left there for some time.

The yard had been recently relaid and the pit shaft was new. There was plenty of coal still there to be dug, and the bastards, Margaret Thatcher and head of the National Coal Board Ian MacGregor, knew it. And still they shut it.

Edlington made national news in 2009 when two brothers, aged 10 and 12, robbed, tortured and attempted to murder two other boys of nine and 11.

The then mayor of Doncaster was criticised and never sought re-election. Children’s services in Doncaster came under attack for not protecting the kids and the workers were blamed.

I’m not saying these bodies were free from responsibility, but the Tory government which shut the pit and tried to destroy that community must share the blame, along with their agents in the Coal Board and police.

To end on a positive note, the community in Edlington is refusing to die. The Yorkshire Main commemorative trust has set up a memorial garden to those who died in the pit and has organised marches and events so it is not forgotten. And the banner hangs in the library for future generations to see.

People like Frank Arrowsmith, chair of the trust, continue to inspire me and I feel we are going to need all the inspiration we can get with the way this government is looking at us and what they have in store for us if they are re-elected this year.

This is a slightly edited version of an article that appeared in the Aslef Journal.