16th January 1902
The greatest moment of my career was when I fired the engine that was driven by King Edward VII from Baker Street to Amersham. The train was meant to leave at 6.10 pm but the King was delayed and we left left 6 minutes late. All the Met top brass were on board. Having royalty on board the path for this special train was completely cleared and so we made the 24 mile journey in a fast 36 minutes. At Amersham we passed the station and then reversed into the up platform so that the King did not have to use the footbridge to cross the lines.
It is doubtful the the King actually drove the train as stated but probably spoke to the engine crew. The King was opening Parliament that day and his journey was to meet Earl Howe at Penn House. Such a fast train journey by this route would not be possible today. Avoidance of the footbridge was presumably for several reasons. Four years earlier when the King was crossing a footbridge in a chair because of a leg injury the chair collapsed. He was now portly, in his sixties and a few months later his appendix burst so he could have been struggling with stairs.
Pennyfare, staff magazine, March 1941
St James Gazette, newspaper, 17th March 1902
Machorne, website, 11th April 2013
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April 1902
Heard that young Charles was shot in the hand with a pistol and had to be take to the Radcliffe.
Charles was one of his brothers who was still living at home in Bletchingdon. It is not clear who inflicted the wound or whose gun it was. The Radcliffe was a hospital on the outskirts of Oxford about 10 miles away. Treatment would have to be paid for as this was decades before the National Health Service. Charles was soon reported as playing sport and later became a stoker so there appeared to be little long term damage.
Oxford Chronicle, newspaper, 28th March 1902
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