Fake news, 1965

 In 1965, as part of the Beeching closures, the railway line serving Pocklington, which ran between York and Beverley, was closed. It had been used by some "day boys" for transport to our school every day. 

(Amusingly the railway was built in the nineteenth century to bring potatoes and other produce from the Wolds into York and human excrement back out to the farms as manure!)

I was interested to see this line featured in the Channel 5 documentary "Walking Yorkshire's Lost Railways" last week. Rob Bell, the presenter, spent several minutes waxing lyrical about the roof on Pocklington station, which is now a sports hall.

On 26 November 1965 there was an item on the BBC's Look North about the closure . Our class, and many more, had been sent to throng out of the station (in the background) while the reporter was talking to camera. It didn't matter that you weren't a train user - or even if you were a boarder(!) - the point was to make the closure look like a disaster for the school.

After trooping out of the station once, we ran round to the other entrance so we could be filmed exiting again, a continuous never-ending loop of schoolboys! There's nothing new about fake news.

The following evening we travelled to York (presumably on a coach) to ride the very last train on this line back to Pocklington. I remember there were thunderflashes placed on the track so these would explode as the engine crushed them. Also that we were essentially unsupervised on the train and our carriage, at least, was basically plundered for anything removable. I somehow prised off a little plaque, probably telling people not to stand on the seats or something, which may well be in the attic still. My diary reads "lots of merry-making"!