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When the postman knocked...
REFERRING TO my piece on the Anglo-Indian connection with the Railways through its 150 year history (Miscellany, September 2), Reader Noel Fuller writes that he is a fifth generation railwayman and wonders whether there are any others who can trace their lineage to virtually the first days of the Indian Railways.
From a search through church records, which state the profession of the father or the bridegroom, Reader Fuller found that John Edward Fuller, who got married in 1864 as a 25-year-old, was an engine driver based in Coimbatore. He was later based in Royapuram. Given the years necessary for promotion from second fireman to engine driver, Reader Fuller estimates that his great, great grandfather probably joined the Railways in 1857 or 1858, shortly after the first train in the South chugged out of Royapuram station in 1856.
One of John Edward Fuller's sons, Albert James Fuller, was a fireman in Madurai when he got married in 1889. He then moved to Asansol as a shunting driver. One of his sons, John Burton Fuller, was a fireman in Madurai at the time of his marriage in 1921.
John Beresford Fuller, a son of John Burton Fuller, entered railway service in 1949 and retired as an engine driver in 1988. His son, my correspondent, joined the Railways in 1981 as a 22-year-old. He doesn't say, and I wonder, whether there is likely to be a sixth generation from the family in the Railways or whether, as in the case of other such families, the younger generation have sought futures in pastures new and greener. But while the tradition lasted, it was a splendid one, particularly when there were such histories.
More information on something I'd written some weeks earlier, namely `f' being used as `s' (Miscellany, September 16) in Olde English, comes from reader S. Ramalingam, a veteran printing technologist, who had qualified in Germany. Ramalingam has sent me a whole sheaf of material which reveals that the `f' is still used in German instead of `s' and even `z'. Another enclosure of his appears to indicate that the `s' in English evolved from something, which looked like `f'. I reproduce below some of the material sent me by reader Ramalingam. But none of it answers my question. Why is the `f' used instead of `s'? I'm still looking for an answer.
S. MUTHIAH
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