NEWS REPORTS ABOUT RAILWAYWOMEN
Stationmistress at Bishopstone, between Lewes and Newhaven, Sussex
The new station was opened on September 26, 1938 and the same day the old Bishopstone Beach Station was closed... A small military camp was built south of the station (on the site now occupied by a caravan site) and the station was busy with the comings and goings of soldiers based there.
The Southern Railway appointed a woman station master which was most unusual at the time. She was Mrs E Moore and in a wartime propaganda film she is seen selling tickets, talking to passengers and waving her flag to see off trains. The film was used to encourage women to take up work traditionally done by men. Mrs Moore had previously been a stewardess on the steamship Brighton and she remained on the vessel after it had been requisitioned as a wartime hospital ship. In 1940 the ship was bombed while in Dieppe harbour but Mrs Moore managed to escape into France where she hid in hedges, walking 40 miles to Fecamp. Here she managed to board a coal ship which was able to drop her off in Cornwall. After all that adventure, Bishopstone Station must have been quite dull!
The last member of railway staff to work there was Mrs Una Shearing who worked from the platform office until 1988.
Bishopstone Station, a classic art-deco design, is now a Grade II listed building.
Kevin Gordon, Sussex Express, 25 May 2006
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