Brighton Belle

By Ralph McTell

My Grandad drove a steam train, my Father drove a truck.
Right across North Africa, taken prisoner at Tobruk.
And when the war was over, and he returned from Hell.
My Grandad got promoted to the pretty Brighton Belle.

Her  colour scheme was brown and cream, some called it sand and sable.
There were curtains at the windows and a lamp on every table.
Her  job to drive all cares away in luxury propel
Us from the tears of war torn years on the pretty Brighton Belle.

The train stopped at East Croydon blew out a cloud of steam.
And my father walked me through it like emerging from a dream.
He passed me to my Grandad,  and no one saw to tell,
How I rode on the footplate of the Pretty Brighton Belle.

My mother pushed her bicycle, my father drove away,
The railway went electric,  grandad went to to work each day
In a clean shirt every morning and he came home clean as well.
The best he said was when he quit the pretty Brighton Belle.

In the middle of the platform down at East Croydon Station
Stood an old dog in a glass case, an ancient stuffed alsatian.
Collecting for the orphans of the railway men who fell
In the war that came before the pretty Brighton Belle.