This is where miscellaneous items of interest would be placed – odd letters or scribblings you may have, or anything else of interest. If you would like us to upload anything, send us details and the file(s) using the contact page. To start, a poem written by Ted. Further on, a video of Ted working in the signal box.
If you would like to add a comment, please do so by using the comment box below. If you leave a comment on this page, you will receive an email whenever other comments have been added.
Untitled Poem
Will it be sunlit? Will it be summer?
Will there be blossom, will there be runner beans?
And fairy stories, pixies, elves,
And you there too yourself
In what you’re wearing now, with just that smile for me?
Is there foam there? Are there seas?
A beach besides? And fish that swim?
And how will I know them?
Will I have eyes?
Will there be colour, will there be depth?
Will there be hillsides, will there be September and conkers?
And walks in the woods?
Do you remember – I stood behind that tree once – you
Never saw me till I shouted out!
Will it be like that?
Will there be carpets?
Will there be walls?
Will there be motorcars?
Horns that honk, and shops,
And crowds, and gaily-coloured streets?
And when will we meet?
And how will you let me know?
And how will I know it’s you?
Ted Dickson
June 2012
on composting sent by Ted to David
Final year school art project by Joanna Vymeris – inspired by Ted
Ted’s CV
Grammar School, broken home, joined Royal Navy then medically discharged with asthma a year in. Have been lavatory attendant, car cleaner, car-jockey, van –driver, double glazing salesman, door to door vacuum cleaner salesman, assistant gardener Regents Park, home help for elderly and finally signalman for Network Rail in a quiet freight box where this play was written between trains. It was inspired by my coming to Hampstead many years ago to rent a room. Wrote previous play many years ago which was rejected by Margaret Ramsay but she was kind enough to much encourage. Have written several partly finished plays since then. The present play ‘A Rather English Murder’ is a comedy whodunit with a sharp edge and an undertow of the surreal.
Video of Ted working at Neasdon Signalbox, March 1995 – thanks to John Greenaway.
Comments:
Beryl on 2013/06/19 at 9:03 am:
Signalman
My friend of many years works six days a week
as two-handed signalman for what was once
British Rail, alone in his signal box,
almost a second home.
His books are there, pen and paper,
a cushion to ease his lot.
A stray cat visits when in the mood.
He talks to it as to an equal.
Eyes and ears always on the alert
to keep the track safe.
Yet the wide-ranging encapsulating mind
wryly observes – secondary occupation –
a world moving towards collision
all signal ignored.
Renee Harris 1997
Postcard from Ted, dated 26/05/12. I love it.
Glad to know you’re feeling a lot better: this is a pleased you’re getting better card.
Ted x
PS please recycle me as a bookmark!
David Lewis on 2013/06/20 at 5:02 pm:
As you can see from the yellow highlighting on Ted’s composting notes, I read them with great care! He would also occasionally leave a bag of worms outside my back door – actually it was not so much a bag of worms as a bag of soil and vegetation containing a few worms, the idea being that these creatures would help to break up the compost by tunneling through it.