Volume 14    Number 8    13 June 1984

I Remember by Herbert Stitt

I Remember
By Herbert Stitt
McBain Publications Inc.
70 Otonabee Drive Kitchener ON N2C 1L6
Paperback, $4.95
 
When Herbert Stitt worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway, you could always tell a locomotive foreman was lurking around by the "Christie Hat" the boss wore. Passenger trains of the time featured barber shops and nursery cars and a mixed train was defined as a consist having both passenger and freight equipment.
 
Railwaymen had curious nicknames like Profanity Bill, Banjo Eyes Bartello, and Rain in the Face Stinson, and fourteen cents an hour for a gruelling 13-hour work day was an honest starting wage when Mr. Stitt hired-on as a wiper in 1905.
 
"I Remember" is Mr. Stitt's premier book, a personal account about an eight-year-old son of an Irish music teacher who longed to be at the controls of a steam-powered locomotive.
 
With remarkable detail and honest emotion, the retired locomotive engineer recalls his 47 years of railroading - the tragedies, the good times, and the unquestionable loyalty among train crews.
 
The book traces a period of Canadian history when the family unit was a close-knit one, social values were high, and life moved at an easy pace despite the hardships of poverty and war.
 
Herbert Stitt truly loved railroading and looks back on his life with fondness. Still today he will pause in front of the house on Pears Avenue in Toronto where he and his five brothers, a sister, and his mother joined their dad after an anxious ocean voyage from Belfast.
 
Sprinkled with humorous anecdotes, "I Remember" will cause even the more crusty of railwaymen to chuckle.
 
Mr. Stitt wrote this 103-page paperback entirely in his own hand at the age of 86. His view of railway life will make a fine compliment to any rail fan's library.
 
Timothy R. Humphreys