The West Winford Incident (12 page)

“Ask Peter, I bet he'll know,” her mother suggested.

“No, I can manage it on my own, I suppose,” grumbled Jo and she went back to her room.

For the next few minutes Sue and Peter chatted and she asked him what his indexing meeting up at Bremham was all about. He explained that very shortly, given the progress she was making with her research, she would be needing to check census and parish records. When she did do that, she may often come across the difficulty of not being able to find out where a person was at a particular time, say at the time of a census, or perhaps, not having any idea of where or when some ancestor had been baptised, for instance. There were so many records. Census returns were based upon addresses, for example, and so in order to find someone, you needed to know the person's address at that time.

“Now supposing that you had an index of names to consult,” he said, “it would be so much easier to locate your ancestors.”

Sue could at once see the benefit of such an index. Peter continued, by explaining that there was a growing collaborative programme, amongst groups of genealogists all over the country, aimed at providing such indexes. Lots of volunteers were busying themselves regularly, in organised groups, working their way through local records. Gradually, indexes were becoming available for parish registers and census records, he continued. It was a very long job, which required a lot of dedication. He said that he had accepted the task of overseeing this work for a few of the Wiltshire parishes and the nearby parish of Bremham was the first to be tackled. His group was small but they were keen, which was the main thing, and also they were very precise. They usually met on Fridays. He ended by saying that if Sue felt like joining them, they would be very pleased. Sue thought that she could spare some time and it would be nice to feel useful and also meet with other family history folk locally. She would think about it and let him know. Peter was pleased and said that she would be welcome to pop in one Friday to see what it entailed.

Katy returned, homework completed presumably, and when her father arrived he was surprised to find her on the sofa, chatting unselfconsciously to a complete stranger, whilst Sue was busy in the kitchen. Introductions followed and a brief friendly chat, before Peter left for his appointment and Dave went out for his run.

Friday couldn't come quickly enough for Sue. During the week she had met Pam for a couple of hours in Chippenham, but otherwise she had been unsettled. At last, the postman arrived. Earlier she had resisted the foolish urge to go down to Home Farm, at the end of the village, and hijack the poor man. Eventually her patience was rewarded. A long brown envelope, bearing her own handwritten address, dropped amongst lesser items onto the hall floor. She checked the two marriage certificates and was pleased to find that the details, for her great grandparents, were as expected, with one of the marriages having taken place in Birmingham the other in Kensington, which was very close to Caroline Jane's birthplace, Paddington. Of particular interest, was the additional information provided, including their ages at the time of their marriage, which would help in obtaining their birth certificates. A real delight was learning the names and occupations of her great, great grandfathers as this took her ‘tree' back another generation. She was excited, though perversely, this information had the negative effect of fuelling her appetite for more. Goodness, where would it all end? Her next step was to find the births of these great grandparents, which would necessitate another visit to Somerset House. She could hardly wait to get to London again.

*

The next sub-committee meeting was arranged for the following week and Dave was preparing a few notes, upon recent developments, when he received a phone call from Dorinda McCann. She told him that he may be interested in witnessing some of the work they were doing. They were colleagues in the same organisation and she had been thinking since the last meeting, when they had had their minor differences, that it might be better if they kept in closer touch and attempted to resolve such differences between themselves, rather than washing their slightly soiled linen in public. Dave agreed and arrangements were made for him to visit Slough, following the London meeting.

Dave decided he would treat himself to an overnight stay at The Bonnington Hotel in London, with whom the SSA had special arrangements. Having this organised, he went to check on Bunsen's progress with his Winford project.

The white-coated Bunsen was his enthusiastic self, bustling about the lab like a two year old. He greeted Dave with a wave, whilst swirling around a large flask containing a hot, probably aggressive, blue solution in his other hand as though it was a cocktail. Dave advanced, though he kept a respectable distance from the frothing mixture.

“Dr Jekyll, I presume?”

“Greetings David. Want a swig?” Bunsen quipped.

Dave was pleased to hear that all was well with the chemical sampling and measuring equipment at Winford and that all steam impurities were within prescribed limits and not significantly different to any other power station in the country – no evidence of contamination.

*

Sue decided to call Peter. She knew that she was being silly, letting all this family history assume such significance for her, but she couldn't help herself. She had been taken aback by Dave's reaction at finding Peter at the house. He said that he had been pleased that she had found an interest, but he didn't expect it to result in him coming home at night and finding some bloke playing fathers with his daughter. She thought that this was more evidence of Dave's attitude to her new found interest. It was clear that he didn't mind her amusing herself with, what in his view was, a silly pastime, providing that it didn't impinge upon his own life. This was particularly galling after she had made an effort to show an interest in his every move.

Peter answered and Sue told him of her news and where her next step lay. She said that she was impatient to make progress and this would require another trip to Somerset House. They chatted for a while, during which Sue agreed to visit his indexing group.

She was still despondent however as, despite having her new friends and her interest in family history, she was still spending many hours alone. She calculated that it was something like forty hours a week. She had checked through the classified section of the local paper, for job vacancies, several times since Christmas without finding anything suitable, but now that she had transport there was a wider selection from which to choose. She had seen two possibilities and written off. The prospects did not seem good as her CV had that ominous fifteen year gap, in addition to her age. These days it appeared that over thirty was over the hill. Her pessimism had been justified, as she was not granted an interview in either case. She had since circled another two and now settled down to apply to both, then, with some effort of will, she directed her attention to her other role in life as housewife and mother and got on with her chores. Goodness, Dave and the girls would be home any minute.

*

Dave arrived home and went straight out for his run. Since the evenings were drawing out, he was able to go over the paths crisscrossing the Highwood Estate, which he much preferred to the winter runs along the dark lanes.

After tea Sue mentioned that her certificates had arrived and so she now knew where her next steps lay, which meant another trip to London. Her delight, when she learned that Dave was going up shortly, was quickly quenched when he added that he'd be staying overnight.

Unusually, Dave travelled to London by car, as this was convenient for getting to Slough the following day. Unlike Sue, he was not familiar with the Hammersmith car park and so as he approached London, he decided to look for an underground station where he might leave his car. He turned north at Chiswick and, after passing Chiswick Park station, he found a suitable place.

The meeting began with Henry, ably assisted by Pauline, doing the usual honours of presenting documents received since the previous meeting. These were the subject of discussion. One gave details of the progress being made with the refurbishment of Number 2 turbine at Winford, which was going well. Some new discs had been manufactured, whilst some of the existing ones had been modified, by removing the keyways and devising a different form of attachment to the rotor. The intention was to carry out a complete refurbishment of all LP turbines. This would be a long term programme involving a huge amount of non-destructive testing.

Joe gave an update on his tests, which were the highlight of the meeting. His steam rig specimens had completed 1,000 hours of exposure and had been removed for inspection by x-ray. He believed that some increase in crack length had occurred, though this was quite small. This caused a ripple of excitement around the table. If confirmed, these results meant that, surprisingly, cracks in disc steel could grow, or deepen, whilst operating in ‘pure' steam, in other words, during normal turbine operation. Thus, just a small ‘crack-like' defect in a disc, say an original fault, could extend during service and cause the disc to fail, as the Winford one had, so dramatically, done.

Following lunch, James Collingwood gave an update on their work at Slough. They had examined the discoloured portion of the fracture surface taken from the failed Winford disc and had found something significant. There was evidence of a series of narrow lines of deformation, which may have arisen, one by one, at each monthly overspeed test. As the dates of these tests would be in the station's records, it might be possible to use these lines as a method of dating the development of crack progression during service, in a similar way to that used with rings on trees. Another observation was that there was evidence of staining on the surface, producing ripples, which could be the residue of an impurity, such as sodium hydroxide, from water droplets in the steam.

Dave's contribution was a collection of small advances. He reported that Bunsen had examined some of the steam analysis data from Winford and that, so far, no evidence of contamination had been found. He went on to say that he had received information from their Fracture Group on the mechanical properties of the failed disc and Pauline had circulated the details. It was evident that this disc had been in a very brittle condition. In addition, there was significant segregation within its structure, including the distribution of impurities in the form of sulphide particles, though the number of these was about normal. All one could say from this, was that the poor mechanical condition of this disc was probably the reason why it had been the one to fail. It was known, from the examination of other discs removed from the failed Number 2 machine, that several contained cracks. It could be that some of these could be deeper.

The meeting broke up early. When Dave went down to the ground floor he saw Pauline standing near the door surveying the incessant rain beating down upon the pavement.

“Going to have to make a run for it,” he grinned.

“I'm meeting a friend later. I was wondering about a taxi.”

Dave said that he was going up to Holborn and would just dash to the tube. Pauline surprised him by saying that Holborn was where she was meeting her friend. Perhaps they could dash together? Pauline's superior knowledge of the Walton House layout, was put to good use as she was able to lead Dave through the complex of corridors, which minimised their exposure to the rain in getting to St. Paul's underground station. As Pauline was not due to meet her friend until later, she accepted Dave's invitation for a drink at The Bonnington, which he hoped they could get to without actually drowning.

Little lasting damage was sustained and the experience had the benefit of overcoming any reserve that either might have felt. After ordering drinks they settled and chatted comfortably. Pauline and her friend were thinking of seeing a film, though they hadn't decided which. She asked Dave about the hotel food. He didn't know but said that one of his colleagues recommended an Italian place just along the road. Pauline enjoyed Italian cuisine. Impulsively, Dave wondered if she would like to join him when he next stayed over. She accepted enthusiastically. They lingered over their drinks as Pauline had almost an hour to kill. They chatted about their respective home towns, of Birmingham and Chichester and their family backgrounds, the most interesting revelation being that Pauline was half Italian on her mother's side. She thanked Dave for his company and the drink before leaving. After a shower, he sought out the local restaurant.

He drove to Slough the following morning and met James, who was to be his escort, as Dorinda was in a meeting. She would join them for lunch. James gave him a tour of the labs. Dave was struck by the contrast between this laboratory and his own. Even though they both belonged to the Strategic Supplies Authority, this was so different. Here there was a proliferation of long hair, beards and pipes with, it seemed, sandals being
de rigueur
in the footwear department. The laboratories were free from the assorted plant items, chunks of metal and the general clutter that he was used to and an air of quiet unhurried calm pervaded.

Eventually they arrived in the Surface Sciences laboratory, which was where corrosion related problems were confronted. In the microscope room a sample from the Winford disc was loaded in the microscope. This had been cut from the same disc section, which Dave had examined five months earlier. He was able to see for himself the features on the fracture surface of the failed disc that he'd heard about at the meeting. Dave could see the features, to which James had referred, but he did not feel that the significance Dorinda and her colleagues were attaching to them, could be justified with any confidence. He expressed his reservations. There were no hard feelings and, following lunch, Dave left.

Back home he read on the message pad a reminder of the skittles match at eight. Sue, without any outward show of displeasure, prepared an early meal. It was with a great effort of will that she resisted the temptation to complain, though this further example of her husband's insensitivity was mentally noted.

The following day Dave told Ian that, during his visit, he had learned of two technical publications, which he wanted him to add to their regular reading list. Some weeks earlier, he had asked Ian to go through a selection of scientific publications on a regular basis and make notes, in a card index, of anything of relevance to their work.

*

“Here we are Sue. The office.” Peter led the way into a dingy vestry room which smelt of dust, damp and decay. It was not well lit. Amongst the clutter, the room contained several old wooden chests and a couple of modern metal cabinets. Around a refectory table in the centre of the room, sat four characters who, Sue would later describe to Dave, seemed to have escaped the pages of a Dickens novel. Peter introduced them; Barbara (Miss Flight?), Liz (Sairey Gamp?), Margaret (Miss Haversham?) and Richard (Mr Pickwick?). The women looked up from their work and smiled or nodded according to their custom. Richard stood up and smiled over his thick spectacles.

“This is Sue, a friend of mine, who is interested in seeing what we get up to on a Friday.” After a mixture of murmurs and nods, the four returned to their work.

“Let me show you what goes on here,” said Peter, leading Sue over to the metal cabinets. He began by explaining that the parish registers of St. John's were begun in 1547 and parish events, notably births, marriages and burials, had been recorded since then. He opened a cabinet and removed an ancient volume. Heavily bound with thick, off-white pages which, in spite of some evident water damage, were clearly identified as the Parish Register for St. John's. Bremham – 1547. Even in the early pages of this first volume, the entries were clearly written in sections under the heading of Baptisms, Marriages, or Burials. However, the writing was difficult for Sue to interpret as the style and spelling of the entries was unfamiliar. She could see that the ‘s' was often written as a long ‘f' and she could guess some of the old spelling of certain Christian names ‘Johannes' – John? She realised that it would require greater concentration to transcribe, than would be the case with the more modern volumes.

“How wonderful,” she commented. Her feelings when handling the precious volume, all those years old, were difficult to put into words. Peter took the book from her and carefully replaced it in the cabinet. Rather unnecessarily, he pointed out how valuable such an original document was, adding that this was the reason for locking the older registers in the steel cabinets. Unfortunately, there was insufficient room for them all and the more recent ones were kept in the wooden parish chests, at present.