Engine Driver & Fireman
Rescued two children from drowning in a frozen pond during a train journey
On 13 Feb 1936, engine driver William Long and fireman Charles Wallace stopped their Southern Railway goods train near
Pooley Green level crossing in Egham upon hearing children’s cries for help. They leapt out of their stopped train to rescue two
children, Alec and Joyce Taylor aged 6 and 8, who were ‘struggling for life’ in a partly frozen pond. ‘They jumped into the water,
pulled out the children, restored them to consciousness, and sent them home. Then hurrying back to their train continued their
journey to Feltham’ in their wet clothes.
William was born in 1891. He and his wife Caroline were living on Meadow Road, Hounslow in 1939 with daughters Maureen
and Sylvia. Charles was the son of a dockyard blacksmith, born near Ebbsfleet in Kent in 1902. He was a railway fireman by the
age of 18, marrying Edith Burgess in Faversham in 1924 and they had three or four children there. They were living on Southern
Avenue, Feltham by 1939. Charles retired in 1967 after 50 Years service. He died in 1976.
The saved children Alec and Joyce, belonged to Harriet and Frederick Taylor, a milkman who lived Vicarage Road, Egham. We
don’t know what became of Alec but we think that Joyce grew up to marry a chap called Kenneth Stradling and may have had a
daughter called Angela.
