Haydon Walker interviewed by Nat Palethorpe

Interview with Haydon Walker recorded by Nat on 1 March 2025 at the National Railway Museum, York. Duration: 1 hour 23 minutes 16 seconds. [Strat of interview] Childhood, family circumstances, living in Rode, early awareness of sexuality, being closeted at school, and travelling by rail. Beginning of career, building vacuum cleaners, a friend’s recommendation led him to contact British Rail and begin a railway career in November 1988. Coming out to his family, their reactions. [00:04:32] Joining signalling engineering team at Bletchley, installing equipment at Harrow and Wealdstone and Euston to Watford line, becoming team leader, long days, poor depot facilities, male-dominated culture, and staying closeted at work. Moving into faulting and maintenance brought rewarding problem-solving but also dangerous conditions, misogyny, homophobic comments, impact of the AIDS/HIV crisis and pressure to mask sexuality, homophobic and misogynistic behaviour from some colleagues. [00:19:40] With privatisation he moved into office roles, signalling technical expert for P-way (permanent way), West Coast infrastructure Service Unit, promotion to senior management team, then Head of Performance Monitoring, work with CAD computers, self-taught computer programming. Coming out to friends outside of work, lack of Equity/Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). Relationships with colleagues, socialising, homophobic incidents, verbal abuse, others reactions, culture, lack of support then. Hiding evidence of living with his partner when friends visited his house, coming out to his friends, their reaction. When women started entering engineering roles, misogyny, resistance to women managers, benefits of increased diversity with the inclusion of women, including improved facilities. Friendships at work, at school. [00:36:11] How he saw signs of acceptance/tolerance from other colleagues in the way they didn’t judge a colleague identified as a crossdresser. In 2007, civil partnership and rail staff travel recognition showed institutional change. [00:39:28] Joining OPRAF (Office of Passenger Rail Franchising), later the Shadow Strategic Rail Authority, working on money flows, train company performance and franchise management with TOCs (Train Operating Companies). More acceptance in central government, came out at work, celebrated civil partnership with colleagues, became involved in LGBTQIA+ workplace groups, groups becoming inclusive, normalised support. [00:49:41] He discusses EDI as education rather than language policing, the impact and harm of being outed by someone else, loss of control involved when someone is denied choice about coming out. [00:54:22] He talks about seeing progress in inclusion and acceptance of transgender colleagues, how empowering it is to see senior leaders who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, reflecting on EDI changes since BR era. He speaks about the struggles he had in his youth with his sexuality, internalised homophobia, the impact of the AIDS/HIV crisis and the hostility towards gay people, impact on mental health impacts, friendships, what it is like to fear for personal safety, having friends injured in homophobic attacks, and staying closeted to protect career. [01:07:47] How progress can be London-centric, differences across the UK, example of homophobic language heard in Yorkshire as banter, feeling it is more out of ignorance than hate. Discussion around evolution of language associated to the LGBTQIA+ community, terms like gay and queer, historic slurs, pronouns, how people can react to pronouns or misgendering. [01:16:20] He considers current LGBTQIA+ representation, efforts by senior leaders to understand transgender and nonbinary identities, how his experience of finding the workplace supportive may not be the same for others in the community. Being close to retirement, recent move to York, limited local support networks, friendliness in the North. Favourite moment in his career. [end of interview]

This interview was made as part of People Pride and Progress (PPP) project. The project was initiated in 2023 to record the stories and memories of the LGBTQIA+ community in a new oral history archive over two years. It aimed to connect past, present and future through intergenerational interviews, offering opportunities for colleagues across all parts of the rail industry to connect, reflect on and learn from each other’s lived experiences while creating an archive of oral history interviews.