MY article a few weeks ago about the women who served as railway guards on the steam trains of wartime Worcester overlooked at least one of those worthy young ladies.

I wrote of the "wonderful times" spent by Mrs Peggy Edwards of Ronkswood, Worcester, as a woman train guard working out of Shrub Hill Station during the war years. In her maiden name of Peggy Montandon, she readily volunteered to be one of the female replacements for male guards called away for war service at the start of the 1940s.

However, the list of names she gave me of some of her colleagues as women train guards left out Mrs Emily Pritchard of Comer Gardens, Worcester.

In her maiden name of Emily Price, she believes she was the first person to be trained as a woman train guard at Worcester, leaving an office job with JC Baker Ltd, the hardware store in Foregate Street.

"You had to pass quite stiff exams to be a train guard," recalls Emily. "For a start, you had to learn how to protect a train should it break down. This meant laying detonators on the line at quarter-mile, half-mile and three-quarter-mile intervals each side of the train."

Emily served as a guard on the Worcester-Paddington, Worcester-Shrewsbury and Worcester-Hereford routes and recalls that the train drivers were very considerate to the women guards.

However, this was not the case with the men porters and other male station staff.

"They appeared to resent the fact that we were getting paid the same as them. If there was stuff to be loaded into the guard's van, they would often leave it to us, saying 'You load it yourselves - you get paid for it.' "

Emily's boyfriend, Bob Pritchard was away on war service in the Royal Artillery but, when home on leave, he would travel with Emily in the guard's van as it was the only way for him to see her on his short stays back in Worcester.

And there was one particularly momentous day on the Worcester-Hereford route.

"The train remained at Hereford Station for some time before returning to Worcester, so Emily and I strolled into the city centre," recalls Bob. "I spotted a diamond solitaire ring in a jewellers window, went in and bought it, proposed to Em on the spot, and we became engaged."

A sorry sequel is that a few years after the war, the ring had to be cut from Emily's finger when it became swollen.

"I was going to take it to a jewellers to be expanded, but had forgotten it was in a pocket when I sent away a pair of trousers to be cleaned. The ring never came back and could not be traced."

However, Bob eventually made amends when he gave Emily a new diamond ring on her 70th birthday! They have now been married for 58 years.

Emily enjoyed "quite exciting times" on the railway but had to "retire" as a train guard in 1944 when she was expecting their daughter, Angela. She transferred to the offices of the Land Army.

Memory Lane featured the flamboyant Bob Pritchard a couple of years ago.

Distinguished by his handle-bar moustache, he was at one time known as Worcester's Prince of Sport and is something of a legend in the city's rowing club.

He has now rowed competitively for more than 60 years and has served three terms as rowing club captain as well as being chairman and regatta president. Down the years, he has been a local champion too in at least five other sports - hockey, athletics, archery, fencing and rifle shooting.