The LNER Encyclopedia

A well known character amongst drivers and secondmen around Kings Cross during the early/mid 1970s Peter may have originally started on the footplate during the late 1950s as a cleaner and then became a fireman maybe either at 'Top shed' or more likely at Hornsey I presume during the final few years of steam around the Kings Cross area although I don't know that for certain?. Anyway I never asked him about his earlier times on the railway although he did often mention about himself being in the Royal Navy which I presume was possibly when he was doing his national service in the mid/late 1950s anyway when chatting with him he would often came out with amusing quips about his time in the RN and say amusing things about 'Rear Admirals' and 'Vice Admirals' which were not in the context of there original RN officer ranks meaning ha ha. When I knew him around 1974-75 I would presume that he was around his mid-30s at that time and he was a driver in no.5 gang at Kings Cross usually on ECS diagrams between Kings Cross & Hornsey carriage sidings and inner suburban passenger diagrams and therefore was usually seen driving either class 31s (Brush type 2s) or Craven units around the Kings Cross area. I would guess that Peter was around 5'-8'' tall and had short greased dark hair combed back and would usually wear the B.R. light green driver's summer jacket (possibly the jackets what B.R. southern region motormen wore?) although sometimes he would wear the dark blue/black B.R. jacket with silver BR buttons. He often liked a 'light and bitter' (a bottle of Pale Ale beer and half a pint of draught bitter mixed) and he also told a number of people at the cross that he lived in the top floor flat of one of the three tall blocks of flats that overlooked Finsbury Park diesel depot. Anyway I recall Peter best standing in the Kings Cross BRSA club opposite St Pancras station chatting with a bottle of beer in one hand and glass of bitter in the other hand. The last time I recall seeing him was many years after I had left Kings Cross loco in late 1975 when we both ran into each other by chance on Holloway Road one Saturday lunch time back in 1989 although I did read on the forum several years ago that he subsequently died possibly either in the 1990s or 2000s.

I remember Peter Green very well frm my time at Kings Cross in the early 70s. I can confirm that he lived in Citizen House on Hornsey Road with his mum. He started at Kings Cross in 1946 as an LNER man. After being called up and serving in the Royal Navy on National Service, he loved his time there so much that he chose to stay on in the Navy. He told me of his exploits all over the world particularly places like Hong Kong and Australia. He loved to talk about his time on steam and chat about his beloved blue'ns, they were always green'ns in my memory. A really nice guy.

G'Day Gents

Remember Peter well, but only worked with him a couple times, ECS mostly, yes he did talk about being in the Navy. I heard that he died only recently.

manna

As previously mentioned 'Greeny' liked a 'light & bitter' which was Peter holding a pint glass in one hand containing about three quarters of a pint of beer out of the bar tap and a bottle Whitbread light ale in the other hand and emptying it slowly into the pint beer glass and sipping a mouth full and swallowing it while to continue to chat with his secondman in the old BRSA club around the back of Kings Cross station opposite St Pancras station back in 1974-75 and that's how I like to remember him ha ha ha...

RIP Peter...

By the way a pint of Yorkshire keg bitter in the Kings Cross BRSA club cost £0.14 pence back in 1974 and it really was a time when you could go out on a Saturday evening with a fiver (£5) in ya pocket and have 5 or 6 pints in the BRSA club and then go for hamburger & chips from the chippy in Pentonville Road and still have a couple of quid left in ya pocket on Sunday morning.