In 1935 it was every small boy's ambition to be an engine driver. Or was it? Tom Watkins, about to start work, isn't so sure, especially as his father, Fred, a top link driver, is something of a legend at the Acton Chalcote engine shed.
For Fred, loyalty to his strict Welsh Baptist upbringing has given way to loyalty to the Great Western Railway. Forceful and dictatorial, Fred is in his element on the footplate of a steam engine, travelling at...