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Railway travellers in past times rarely set out
without a newspaper or magazine to read on the journey and soon the now
familiar bookstalls made their appearance on the platform, usually run by
W H Smith & Son who established a chain of them at railway stations across
the country.
This photograph from 1920 shows customers and railway staff gathered
around the company’s bookstall on the main platform at Bourne station
adjoining the Red Hall in South Street, when the manager was Ernest
Smallman (pictured standing, far right). He had joined the business as a
relief clerk at Stafford after leaving school and was sent to various
locations including Peterborough North Station where he met Gertrude
Plimmer, the girl who was to become his wife.
Ernest had several promotions and by 1916, he had become bookstall manager
at Bourne and the couple had set up home in Elm Terrace, off North Road,
where they had two children. He left for a spell in the army during the
Great War but returned to Bourne station and then after various
managerships around the country retired in 1930 to run a newsagent’s shop
at Wolverhampton where he died in May 1951 aged 66, and this photograph was found in the family album after his
death. |
