Of Sea and Sand by Jonah
Simon and Garret are here again,looking after their young family.If you are unfamiliar with this family, we first met Simon in 'A Letter from America' back in 2019. He was a teenager then, now he is well into adulthood. Garret originated in another author's story. I want to thank Jacob Lion,in the USA for his permission to use his characters in my story. That's one of the things I want to make plain, all the characters in this, and all my other stories are wholly fictitious. They aren't based on real people. The other thing I want to make plain is that, while Simon and Garret are both gay, as are some other characters, this is a story about love - not sex,lust,or any other substitute, but real Christian love.If it's pornography you want, you'll have to find it somewhere else. Lastly, this story is brought to you by Nifty, free of charge. Nifty doesn't charge me to publish it, nor you to read it, but it does cost money to bring it to you. Please consider donating to Nifty at https://donate.nifty.org/ so that these stories continue to be available for all to read.
Chapter 5
It had been decided,by whom nobody now remembers,that Garret's 4x4 was to spend the week parked at Norwich Thorpe Station. We had loaded it up last thing on Friday night. On Saturday morning,after an early breakfast which the three adults enjoyed - in the case of the three boys there was no evidence that it ever touched the sides - we loaded ourselves into the 4x4 and were off to the railway station. We were in good time to unload our vehicle and load ourselves into the 0800 to London, Liverpool Street.
It was about twenty years since I had first made this journey. Even so, as a driver of steam and diesel trains, I had still not got used to the complete lack of fuss when electric trains set themselves in motion. The platform slid silently away and we glided across the space between the platform end and Carrow Road bridge. Once under the bridge we turned right and the first real noise we made was the clatter over Trowse Swing Bridge. We were off to the capital. All three boys had trainspotting books at the ready. Until we reached Ipswich there was no real call to use them.
"Daddy," said a small voice. "Barry says B12s used to pull the trains down here."
"Well, he's right Lloyd," I told him. "It's the job they were built for."
"Trains must have been slower in those days."
"Yes, they were, but not as much as you think," I said. "You've never seen the B12 at more than twenty-five miles an hour, because that's the speed limit on the NNR but, on the main line, she was doing ninety most of the time."
"Cor!" said Lloyd and Philip in unison. Barry, with his addiction to books, was evidently unsurprised. Aren't children wonderful?
A game of "I spy" filled the rest of the time to Colchester. A mid-morning snack took us to Ilford, from which point the spotting books were in regular use.
The train glided into the terminus as if it was completely innocent of the breakneck dash from Norfolk. We were already standing ready to alight and unload our luggage.
We had already decided that,with all this luggage,the journey from Liverpool Street to Charing Cross would not be made by Underground. A taxi was my best solution but my step-brother had vetoed that.
Sure enough, Luke was on the platform to help us unload and carry the luggage to Rikki's car. Once loaded up we were off into the city, and I was glad that Luke was driving. I certainly wouldn't have fancied the job.
The boys were excited as Luke ferried us down Cannon Street to St.Pauls and then via Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street to the Strand. Diving through the tunnels we emerged amidst the huge bulk of the Savoy, and other huge buildings, until we swung onto the short-stay car park of Charing Cross Station.
Luke helped us to get our luggage to the platform and then wished us a happy holiday and hurriedly departed, not wishing to get a ticket on Rikki's car.
It was during this ferrying that I learned that Grev's BSc (with honours) had not come from the University of East Anglia, as I would have expected, but from the University of London, and that not much of London was the same as it had been in "Grev's day".
South-East Trains provided us with an electric multiple unit to whisk us away to the sunshine, though the sun was shining in London too. We glimpsed the Houses of Parliament as we crossed Hungerford Bridge and drew into Waterloo(East)then wound our way through South London to visit London Bridge. Electric trains that picked up their current from conductor rails were a novelty to the boys. Even modern multiple units semed to clatter a lot over that sort of infrastructure. In any case, this was South London. There seemed to be trains everywhere. Once clear of the city,we rattled at express speeds through many stations. Eventually we stopped at some. Places like Rochester and Strood, Chatham and Gillingham came and went.By the time we got to Whitstable we were seeing a lot of the Kent coast. The boys were becoming more and more excited. We were stopping everywhere from then on. Herne Bay,Birchington,Westgate,and into Margate. It seemed a lot of stops before we decanted at Margate. Margate is a big station, but the town once boasted three stations - Margate West, Margate Sands and Margate East. Only the West station now remains,shorn of its suffix.
Having decanted, we found a way of cramming all six of us, plus luggage, into a taxi for the ride to Cliftonville. It was half past four in the afternoon.