Profile – David Piggott

Profile

David Piggott

My subject this issue is a well known and, dare I say it, popular local character. Anyone who has ever taken the train to Kings Cross or Cambridge will know our erudite sales assistant (mustn’t say Station Master – they were abolished in 1963). I was amused one day waiting on the platform when a party of Spanish students arrived and were completely taken aback when David emerged from his cubby hole and addressed them in fluent Spanish!

But to the beginning. Born in Royston at St George’s Nursing Home in 1947, David’s parents lived in Buntingford where father was a butcher. He has a sister who is married and living in Royston and he has a niece and nephew of whom he is fond.

His father gave up the butcher’s shop and moved to Green Drift in Royston when he took a job at ICL in Letchworth. David had attended Hertford Grammar School and won a place at The Queen;’s College, Oxford where he studied modern languages. He worked hard at his studies because, due to an inherited kidney problem, he had a number of periods of bad health including two kidney operations and was constantly having to catch up. When he graduated, he took a job in London at a bank and commuted to New Oxford Street for four years until the bank wanted to relocate him to Kensington. Although he very much enjoyed the London scene, he was not keen on the idea of the move and a chance comment to his old headmaster at a school reunion led to him being offered the post of Spanish teacher back at Hertford Grammar, his old school.

Whilst working in London he had developed a taste for the theatre and amateur dramatics. Under the leadership of Fred Sillence he spent happy years as a member of the Royston Drama Group, acting in most of their productions and loving every minute of it. One Victorian farce they put on, called Dandy Dick, needed a strong female lead who just happened to be the wife of the commandant of Bassingbourn Barracks. The CO was anxious that all his men should see his beloved in her leading role and arranged for a staging of the play at the barracks. With 5 days to go no tickets had been sold, so in a Draconian move, all leave was cancelled, all bars closed except the theatre bar where beer was advertised at 10p a pint and miraculously within 24 hours all the seats were sold. The performance went ahead to a packed house, although with the cheap beer the audience was paralytic and the farce was not confined to the stage!

This play was also staged at another location, where the scenery had on one side been placed close up against a wall, with the result that the poor actor who was first to exit left opened the door to find a brick wall and he couldn’t get off the stage. Panic.

It was during his teaching period that David became involved in Quizzes. Two of his pupils were desperate to appear on the ‘telly’ and applied for places on a TV quiz show. They needed to have a third member of the team, an adult, and so (without asking) they entered their form master. By the time the BBC took up their entry, the boys had actually left school but they still entered the quiz (Angela Rippon was the quiz master). One of the them was working on the underground and the other was a student at a pharmaceutical college. They were anxious to have their mascot on view, but it happened to be an 8’ stuffed alligator and the trauma of getting this thing across London and negotiating a revolving door is still vivid in David’s memory. They didn’t win, but one of the boys was lured by the spotlights and, as David said, would start performing if he opened the fridge door and the light came on!

They got onto a quiz programme called Today’s The Day – the prize at the end of all the rounds was a round the world ticket – for one! They must have made a good impression because when the format of the programme changed and each contestant was paired with a celebrity, they were called back and David was paired with Cheryl Baker.

Then he appeared on Mastermind both radio and

TV. It is an urban myth that David was the winner of

Mastermind, but he certainly put up a good show. On radio, he got through to the second round – his specialised subject was Roman Britain but in the second round his subject was supposed to be 20th century British battleships but somehow it was turned into the history of the British Navy and David came unstuck. On the TV show, his chosen subject was the French West Indies where he had taught for a year. Yes, that was another surprise. After four years at Hertford Grammar teaching Spanish, French and occasionally

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History and English, he applied for an exchange year and was given Guadeloupe. His exchange partner lived in David’s flat in Hertford but as he had left his wife behind David could not stay with her, so shared a nice concrete house with one of his partner’s relations. Just as well it was a solid house because they endured a really dreadful Hurricane, Hugo, which cut a swathe through the island and their concrete home actually remained standing.

He had thought he was going to teach English, but in fact there had been a mix up and what the West Indian teacher had been teaching was Business Studies in English. So David had to swat up on business studies and managed to get through the year, very often being just one page ahead of his students in the text book! The school buildings were beautiful – it was a French Lycee – and the pupils were all races, colours and creeds but all of them very laid back and cheerful.

During this time David took the opportunity of visiting Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Mexico – drinking in the local culture and history. And everything got filed in that meticulous filing cabinet of a brain.

Part of the deal of the exchange was that he should carry on teaching for another whole year back home, but in fact he stayed for 6 years. Yet he never quite got back his enthusiasm after his travels and at Christmas 1996 everything was changed for him. His parents were by now living in Hale Close. David was taken seriously ill with pleurisy and pneumonia. He was off work for some 9 months and eventually he resigned from the school. When he finally felt fit enough to work again, he took a job on the Science Park, going back into the world of commerce. Not to go into too much detail, one of his tasks was to telephone European hospitals to get data for a comprehensive register – his languages being brought into play. When new buildings were going up in the Science Park the company became temporarily homeless and David was looking for a job again. Going to the old Melbourn Post office for a stamp he found an enormous queue, so hopped on his bicycle and went down to Meldreth where he propped his bike underneath the small ads. And there he saw the job at the station.

I doubt whether the railways have ever had such a highly qualified applicant and of course, David got the job. Originally the plan was to have two people working doing three days each. His partner was a woman, but she did not take to the job and eventually David took over Monday to Friday with Saturdays as overtime. As he put it, Saturday puts the jam on top of the cream on the scone.

He really enjoys the job. He is helpful and knowledgeable and has often saved us money by working out the best way of getting around on the railways in the most economical way. If trains are delayed (which does not happen very often nowadays, he says) he will provide tea and coffee for stranded passengers. When my grandson was at the Perse and started to use Meldreth station, David asked my daughter for his details and entered them in his ‘little book’ so that if anything went wrong on his patch, he would know how to get hold of her. He didn’t have to do that, it is all part of his caring nature – the old Form Master coming out.

He told me a number of funny incidents, a dear old lady getting off the train looking a bit bewildered and asking ‘is this Wimbledon?’ David telephoned her relatives in London and told them mother would be about five hours late! Another time a train was late because the driver had been attacked by a swan – but he never did get to the bottom of that tale.

A short while ago there was a suggestion that the station would not be manned on Saturdays, but the local people were up in arms about that and they petitioned successfully to keep David on duty.. Very gratifying, he said modestly. I asked what happens about getting a ticket after David has knocked off at 1.15 – apparently you can get a ‘permit to travel’ from the ticket machine and then pay your fare at the other end.

Unsurprisingly, David loves travelling and has recently spent holidays in Seville, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Nice – mainly countries where he knows that he can speak the language. He also enjoys the cuisine in these foreign parts and says that he enjoys cooking. The lure of the greasepaint has faded with the years, although he still likes to go to the theatre where possible. But rising early each morning to be at the station on time sadly means that more often than not he has to be in bed early.

So next time you buy your cheap day return to Kings Cross, just ask David about any General Knowledge clues you may be stuck on in your crossword – he is bound to have the answer! Mavis Howard