The receipt of the Notice of Members Annual General Meeting of the National Trust next month, to be held at Steam, the Museum of the Great Western Railway in Swindon, gave me food for thought.

It sped me back to my youth as a child in the mid-1960s when school trips were commonplace and looked forward to.

Born and bred in Swindon, regular guided tours of the railway workshops, the “works” or “factory” as we knew it, proved popular.

My father was an employee of God’s Wonderful Railway (the Great Western Railway for the uninitiated), as was a fair proportion of the adult male population of Swindon.

Now long closed down, part of the “works” accommodate modern shopping facilities and houses the headquarters of English Heritage.

But back in the 60s it was a hive of physical activity, the tours of the workshops conducted against a backdrop of noise, bustle and dirt.

Workers found visitors a great source of entertainment, a practical joke being the deployment of a few old pennies about the place. The odd copper would be strategically left lying on the floor, next to a workbench, an iron column or the like – basically where it would be noticed.

Many a lad would eagerly bend down to pick up and pocket the coin – a penny after all was one sixth of my weekly pocket money – only to find it securely fixed (spot welded, no doubt) to the floor!

Adults were even better game. The sight of a well-dressed man surreptitiously placing his foot on the coin then kneeling in the pretence of tying his shoe lace, made the workers burst out in laughter. If it was a teacher, even more so. This simple act was intended to subvert the class system in its own way, to bring a little light relief to an otherwise physical work regime, and lessen the feeling of being imprisoned behind the high brick walls of the “factory”.

Industrial archaeology maybe not, but certainly the above is a social and cultural aspect of it.

Clive Bowd Cherry Tree Crescent Kendal Cumbria