Unpaid work part one

I've done a bit of voluntary work over the years, depending on work and music commitments. In the early eighties my band had folded and I struggled to get another one going. It was always a bind finding suitable reliable musicians, and when we relocated to Somerset I just decided that it was too much trouble finding musicians, agents and venues so I retired from music for a few years.
My father was an engine driver and I'd always loved steam railways. I got the bug quite badly in the mid-late 70s. Whenever we played a weekend booking in Leicester that involved playing both Saturday night, Sunday lunch and Sunday night I'd visit the Great Central Railway at Loughborough during the afternoon and ride on the railway. I even drove the 90 miles or so to Didcot to volunteer to clean up and help restore one of the scrap railway locomotives there. After a while the travelling got too much and when I heard that there was a small group restoring a steam engine not far from where I lived I decided to pay them a visit.
For the next few years I spent most Sundays up to my armpits in grease and muck, cleaning and painting an old steam locomotive. It was great fun and a great sense of achievement when we finally steamed it and it moved under its own power.
Soon after that we moved over 150 miles away, but all was not lost. There was another steam railway a few miles away and after spending some time getting our new house in order I put in an appearance there. Our little quarry tank engine was dwarfed by the huge 9F freight loco that I worked on. I climbed in the firebox (when the fire was out) and could stand up inside it with my hands outstretched. I had to sweep it clean and apply a limewash to the metal in order to protect it over the winter. I did a few other jobs but nothing as glamourous (!) as that.
After a few years we moved back to Northamptonshire and I rejoined my friends with the little saddle tank engine. They were about to move to a new greenfield site. When I saw the new site there were four wooden pegs in the ground to signify where the museum would be sited. Over the next year or so we levelled the ground, dug pits and foundations ready for the building and rails.
I learned that you have to dig deep if you want to build high.
It was almost a year before we were able to move our engines into the museum but it was great fun and the perfect antidote to the day job.
Sometimes a change is better than a rest.