[Vwoolf] Transport memories

Eleanor McNees Eleanor.McNees at du.edu
Wed Sep 18 19:37:19 EDT 2013


Dear Stuart and fellow Woolfians,

I've perused this discussion of public transport and Woolf with considerable interest as I worked on this for the NYC Woolf conference and have an essay largely on omnibus travel in Woolf's works in Woolf and the City: Selected Papers of the Nineteenth Annual Conference on Virginia Woolf, ed. Elizabeth F. Evans & Sarah E. Cornish (Clemson UP, 2010), 31-39. I wish I had time to reprise this project as it's much larger than I'd thought when I began the research (some of which I conducted in the London Transport Museum with the assistance of a former librarian there who had London transport maps from the dates of Woolf's novels).

Best wishes,
Eleanor

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Eleanor McNees
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From: vwoolf-bounces+emcnees=du.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+emcnees=du.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Stuart N. Clarke
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 10:39 AM
To: vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu
Subject: [Vwoolf] Transport memories

Last Monday we pointlessly caught the 10.15 at Laxey up Snaefell; ½ hour journey ea. way, £11 return.  Pointless, because of the cloud cover at the top, and pretty chilly to boot.  So we got the same tram/train/thing back:
http://www.iomguide.com/mountainrailway.php
Anyway, the seats go backwards and forwards (as they still do on most Japanese trains).  And on the horse trams on the IoM:
http://www.iomguide.com/horsetram.php

Two hot days:

(1) During the school hols, I and 2 friends bought Green Rovers (for country buses), and at one of our changes of bus we clubbed together and bought a large bottle of Tizer from a newsagent/sweet shop.  But: my "friends" wouldn't let me drink it in the street.  No, we all had to wait until we got onto the top deck of another bus.  How times have changed: now we're not supposed to eat or drink on buses.

(2) My parents and I were, I think, coming back from the coast on a train with compartments and a corridor down the side.  All the smokers were full, so we went into a non-smoker, where there was a couple.  My mother asked if they could smoke.  "Well, actually, we did come in here to avoid the smoke."  My mother was *furious* - "Well, we did ask politely."  How times have changed . . .

I remember smoking only upstairs on the buses.  And "ladies only" compartments on the trains.  And clouds of smoke at the pictures; you could look up and see the projector light shining through the wreaths of smoke.

When I was in Edinburgh in 1962, I 'phoned up some tourist office in Glasgow, and asked if the trams had stopped.  "Yes, madam" was the reply.  Wrong on both counts.  Still, I have been on the old Blackpool trams a number of times, and you could see why people had wanted the trams to go - rattling, slow, uncomfortable.

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/bluebell/car_fs1.html
'Second class was abolished in the early years of the 20th century, with the exception of trains to the channel ports for ferry services which still retained second class. Thus most railways had only first and third classes, until 1956 when third was re-named second (now "standard").'

Stuart


From: Jeremy Hawthorn<mailto:jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2013 12:45 PM
To: Stuart N. Clarke<mailto:stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com> ; vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] More omnibuses

In my youth smokers had to sit upstairs on buses, and downstairs was non-smoking (which would make good sense if there was no roof). But this must have been different at a time when the middle classes sat upstairs - must it not?

I also have a very early memory of a tram - late 1940s early 1950s, in Croydon I think - which had no turning circle so went backwards and forwards on its route without turning. To cope with this, the backs of seats could be pushed backwards or forwards, so that passengers could always sit facing forwards.

Even in the late 1950s there were 1st and 3rd class compartments in trains, along with smoking and non-smoking compartments, and ladies-only compartments, in both classes. 2nd class had been abolished (when?), but with a wonderful British logic the other two classes remained 1st and 3rd.

Jeremy H
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