9 December 1925 to 1 October 2020

Charlie (Cyril) was born in 1925 in Star Road Fulham into a typical working class family of that time. He was the fourth of ten children. He never lost sight of his upbringing and used to talk fondly of his early years. He was very proud of his Fulham roots.

Even at a young age Charlie was a very competent artist. He used to love drawing caricatures and used to capture teachers in various poses. This often got him into trouble. He won a scholarship to attend an art college to study commercial art but once his mother found out how much it would cost she soon put a stop to it. This disappointment did not dampen his love of art and over the years he developed his own particular style in oils. In 1955 he won London Undergrounds’ annual art competition in the class of ‘best artist’ which was a very prestigious award. His last full size oil painting was in 1991 at the age of 66.

As a young teenager he worked on the Great Western Railway in the catering department on the Paddington to Penzance route. His brother Ted worked on a sister train on the same route. He had a very lucky escape whilst he was in hospital in Cornwall after breaking his ankle stepping off the train. A stray Messerschmitt straffed the hospital killing someone in the adjacent bed.

During the war he served in the Royal Navy, attached to the South East Asia Command. He survived being blown up on a launch and being lined up to be shot in the jungle after mistaken identity. He witnessed some pretty awful scenes as his ship was offloading troops and equipment onto the beaches and he never forgot the harrowing scenes as he helped to liberate Changi jail in Singapore. After the war he spent a year in the building trade working with his father in law repairing bomb damaged houses.

Charlie went to work for the London Underground Passenger Board in 1947, in a Permanent Way maintenance gang at Turnham Green. His brother George also worked in a maintenance gang at Hammersmith. He was given the name ‘Charlie’ on his first day by the ganger Ted Golding. Apparently Ted never called anyone by their real name! Seeing the initial ‘C’ on the paperwork he said, “right from now on you will be known as Charlie”. This name stayed with him throughout his railway career, everyone knew him as ‘Charlie’. However when he eventually got into the Permanent Way Design Office his boss said it sounded too common so he called him ‘Charles’. He was the only one to use that name!

As you can imagine, work on the railway in the 1940’s was very hard. Rails were lifted onto flat wagons and manoeuvred by hand, sleepers were manhandled, ballast was dug out by hand and all rails were hand cut and drilled by hand. He once said that between him and his brother George they’d cut and drilled every single rail in Ruislip depot before it was commissioned.

Whilst times were hard they did manage to have fun, even with a ganger in charge who delighted in docking your wages by half an hour for hardly any reason at all. One of the many stories relates to a tree at the end of Ealing Common station which overhung the end of the platform. One of the members of the gang had a brother who worked as a costermonger so he always had a good supply of fruit to bring to work. They used to arrive early in the morning and decorate the tree with bananas and the following day apples. Passengers could not believe their eyes as they sped past the tree!

Charlie eventually become sub-ganger with a speciality in junction-work. He was also called upon to act as a Chainman to assist engineers with their surveys. It was during these shifts acting as a Chainman where he developed his interest in design.

With a young family to feed he soon realised that if he wanted to earn more money and further his career he would have to make the transition from Blue Collar to White Collar. He possessed a tremendous desire and drive to better himself and faced many class prejudices along the way. At that time it wasn’t the ‘done thing’ for someone to come from the gang and enter the design office. He went to night school for several years, at a time when he was on permanent nights at Chalk Farm, studying for his ONC and HNC. He eventually got a job in the Permanent Way Design Office and worked his way up to lead a design section.

There was nothing he didn’t know about Permanent Way and he delighted in passing on his wealth of knowledge to trainees and new entrants into the office. He spent two years on permanent nights learning about maintenance of deep level tube track, spent time in the Machine Shop at Lillie Bridge, worked on the Victoria Line experimental section at Finsbury Park, was assigned to the New Track Forms section at Pelham Street before returning once again to the Design Office at Lillie Bridge. He worked on many preliminary designs schemes around the world including Hong Kong, Singapore and Caracus as well as near to home for the Docklands light Railway. His phone never stopped ringing with people seeking advice and guidance. He had time for everyone.

Charlie came from a railway background as his father worked for the LMS in their West Kensington Coal & Goods Depot, a brother worked for The Great Western Railway and another brother, George, worked in a maintenance gang at Hammersmith. Over the years London Underground employed his wife Eva, who worked in a reprographics section at Edgware Road and Ashfield House and his son Peter who followed in his footsteps into Permanent Way Design. His daughter Marion worked for London Underground in Lifts and Escalators and two of his grandchildren were also employed by London Underground during their summer vacations. All in all their combined service for railways amounted to circa 180 years.

Charlie had an insatiable desire for Knowledge and even in his retirement years he continued to assimilate as much knowledge as he could teaching himself Portuguese and German. He also purchased a book on Calculus as he said he never really got to grips with it whilst at college! Just before he died, he embarked upon his last challenge by studying the workings of the human body by reading a book called ‘The Universe inside you’.

His wealth of knowledge, his patience, and his desire to help people left a lasting impression on those that knew him. He left Eva, his wife for 76 years, three children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. He will be missed by all his family and all those who knew him.