Aubrey Punter interviewed by Peter Russell

Oral history interview with Aubrey Punter conducted and recorded by Peter Russell on 9 January 2013, at the Priest's House Museum, Wimborne, Dorset. Duration: 1 hour 9 minutes. The interview focuses on Aubrey Punter’s career on the railways between 1956 and 2005. Start of railway career, medical exam by Dr Reed; Reported to Branksome, keeping depot tidy; rule brook; shunting at Poole; [00:05:00] steam raiser at Branksome; routes around Branksome; job on Pines Express; Templecombe; inspected on Pines Express; workings from Templecombe; push and pull link; [00:10:00] Swanage link; Wareham to Dorchester and return; back to Branksome; Salisbury runs; keeping fire up; lost fire and made it up; [00:15:00] water shortage on run to Southampton; experience with Pines; work with injectors; went round Old Road and learnt to drive; [00:20:00] goods traffic; petrol to West Morden; vans with exhibition stuff; stop at Claxton for pint of beer at pub; [00:25:00] working at Blandford; milk wagon shunting at Bailey Gate; not allowed to take milk out; [00:30:00] coal dropped off too early; family matters; engraving; [00:35:00] started on railway; did unpopular shifts; moved to electrics; Victoria and Nine Elms; accident with long trains; changed ends; goods to Ringwood; railtour around corkscrew; [00:40:00] [Colin Divall joins interview] Wimbledon station and island; worked on Pines express as fireman; Richard Peverer; pick up wagons at Poole down yard; [00:45:00] animal traffic on Somerset and Dorset; shunting at Firwood; Wimborne yard; scrounger tale about laxative; shunting at Wimbledon; [00:50:00] Ministry of Defence (MOD) locomotives; medical for call up papers; not enlisted but doing more important job; worked to Fawley with 9F; to Loxwood; [00:55:00] Fratton; electro diesel to Rowlands Castle; steam crane; no one turned up to relieve him; 18 hour shift; taxi taking him back didn’t know way and he drove it back; [01:00:00] mechanism to raise electric shoes on electro diesel engines; worked to Exeter and back; through Temple Combe and back long way; closure of Somerset and Dorset line; freight workings in 1960’s; ironstone trains towards Oxford; father worked on pot firing at works towards Broadstone; [01:05:00] kiln pots fired on 12-hour shifts; nothing by train [01:08:49] [end of interview]

Oral history recording made by Peter Russell who worked with Colin Divall from the Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History (University of York) in partnership with the National Railway Museum. This specific interview was made as part of Platform Memories (Wimborne area) project