After working at the pin factory in Whitecroft, in 1958 Pam Box secured a new job at the Lydney Telephone Exchange. Here Pam describes the work, connecting callers across the Forest or on to other exchanges beyond, and how she still remembers to this day the numbers of some of the callers.  

When Pam arrived in Lydney for work at the Telephone Exchange early on the morning of October 26th 1960 she could tell something was amiss. During the night two barges had struck the railway bridge across the Severn causing an explosion and severing the electricity and gas mains it carried. 

The detailed work of cleaning and servicing locomotives was for William Baldwin his first job on the railways, later leading to working next to the driver as footplate man. Here he describes in detail the daily routine.  

One of the advantages of working on a locomotive was using the firebox to cook. The driver might even share breakfast with his footplate man, as William Baldwin remembers here.  

The Severn Railway Bridge linked the two communities on either side of the Severn, with people commuting both ways for work, school and shopping. For those working on the railways the route across the bridge was known as 'the push and pull', described here by footplate man William Baldwin.

Pam Stratford's mother was the Post Lady for the Yorkley area. Here Pam gives an insight in how the post was handled in the area at the time. 

James Bevan recalls how his father Roy, with Roy's brother Fred, set up the Soudley Valley bus company, and how they came to have such a distinctive livery. Roy was working for local entrepreneur John Joiner who part-owned a bus company in Stratford. Joiner knew a change in the law was coming in 1930 that would make it harder to set up, so advised the brothers to get started straight away and found them their first bus.  

James Bevan describes how Norah Bennett, working for his father on Soudley Valley bus company, became one of the first woman bus drivers in the Forest.

Donald Harris returned to Lydney in 1953 after his National Service in Germany and was given a job as ‘Lamp Man’, maintaining and refuelling the lamps used for signalling on the railways. This predated the electrification of signals, and here he outlines the job and the process involved.

A bicycle could be the first step to transport independence or sometimes just the only way to get to work. With cars being beyond the reach of many the next step up would be a motorcycle. Mike Hinton believed his father (pictured) had at one time one of the first motorbikes in the area and here he describes how he later bought his own.