My father, Mr William Cedric Poole was signalman at Churchill & Blakedown signal box for many many years and I, his daughter, spent countless happy hours in the signal box with him. How I loved to know in advance when a steam train was about to arrive. I would chase down the steps and up to the bridge by the station and wait. You could see the steam and hear the sound of the approaching train, but only lightly from the distance. But as the mighty monster came nearer and nearer and nearer, I and other children sometimes, would wave to the firemen and then to the guard, who always waved back to us. The bridge seemed to tremble as the mighty monster thundered under it. It is little wonder that, as a children’s (and adults’s) poet now, the subject of steam trains comes up and up in my poems. I have thousands upon thousands of teachers who come to my website for poems for their classrooms, and from 188 countries of the world, and they love the steam train poems – – – and yes, the other poems too I’m told. Google JOSIE’S POEMS and you’ll see some nice poems for your children. Josie Whitehead
My father, Mr William Cedric Poole was signalman at Churchill & Blakedown signal box for many many years and I, his daughter, spent countless happy hours in the signal box with him. How I loved to know in advance when a steam train was about to arrive. I would chase down the steps and up to the bridge by the station and wait. You could see the steam and hear the sound of the approaching train, but only lightly from the distance. But as the mighty monster came nearer and nearer and nearer, I and other children sometimes, would wave to the firemen and then to the guard, who always waved back to us. The bridge seemed to tremble as the mighty monster thundered under it. It is little wonder that, as a children’s (and adults’s) poet now, the subject of steam trains comes up and up in my poems. I have thousands upon thousands of teachers who come to my website for poems for their classrooms, and from 188 countries of the world, and they love the steam train poems – – – and yes, the other poems too I’m told. Google JOSIE’S POEMS and you’ll see some nice poems for your children. Josie Whitehead