Morecambe woman wins bidding for Appleby station master sign (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Morecambe woman wins bidding for Appleby station master sign

5:12pm Wednesday 3rd February 2010 in

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THE daughter of one of Appleby railway station’s longest-serving station masters has been reunited with the sign which hung on his office door after 40 years.

Bidding in one of the largest auctions of Settle to Carlisle railway line memorabilia the country has ever seen, Daphne Park, 57, of Morecambe, was successful in getting the ‘station master’ sign for £440, despite stiff competition.

“I remember that sign from when I was young waiting in his office for him to finish work.

“I worked as a nurse in Keighley and would travel up and down that line stopping off to see my Dad at Appleby. It’s such a lovely thing to remember him by and I think he would have been one of the last station masters to have that sign on the door. I am so pleased that it is now back in our family,” she said.

Mrs Park found out about the auction after her friend spotted an article in The Westmorland Gazette.

“I have five sisters but I didn’t tell them because I didn’t want them to bid against me!”

Mrs Park’s father, Norman Greenhow, who died eight years ago, started as a shunter at Crosby Garrett station aged 14 in 1934. He became station manager of Appleby West in 1968 and retired in 1981, by which time he had risen to area manager.

The auction, held by Railwayana Auctions UK in Stafford, took 400 phone calls in three days.

Auctioneer Neil Booth said it was one of the busiest auctions he had ever held.

“Considering the weather conditions were against us and we had to do the auction via telephone rather than at the auction house, we had an abundance of callers, including people from Canada, South Africa and Australia,” he said.

The auction will have made tens of thousands of pounds for the mystery Cumbrian whose collection made up much of the auction.