Life Around Brandon and Wolston Station

Two cards were given to me by my neighbour, they’re part of a large collection of postcards, of local people.They’re photos from the late 1800s, some of them.

These postcards refer to someone in Coventry coming to Brandon for a dance, via Brandon Station, they’re dated from 1910-1911. They give a sense of how the station helped life carry on. One of them says how they will be “coming over on Sunday by train in the morning to fetch the cake. The other is transcribed below:

Dear M A am coming to the dance on Saturday by train get in Brandon about a quarter to three. Mother is not coming this time as she is not very well. Sorry I could not come for  the last dance as I had got a very bad face, I dare not come and show a face that fright I should never have had a ____ dear God for any dances at all. Remember us all to your granny and the rest. I think this will  be all this time with love from L York

remember me to little alice

Sugar beet

I remember the station when it was open. We went there from Channing’s Farm with a tractor and trailor loads of sugar beet, we then unloaded into a wagon on the sidings. Once that wagon was full, it went off to the Cambridgeshire sugar beet factories. A few weeks later, it came back as dried chippings of grey sugar beet that had been extracted from it, and that was used for cattle feed. I remember doing it a couple of times, the farmer changed crops, this was about 1957-1958.

A neighbour’s husband used to come out from Coventry to the station and go to the speedway.

Changes

Really, what’s changed over the last 40 years is the loss of the railway. Cars and lorries have taken over. A lot of people commute to London by train, they drive to Rugby. You can’t get the train from Brandon anymore.