Obituary to Nona Noble 1925 – 2007: a ‘big wheel’ in the Swanage Railway for nearly 30 years.
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Obituary from Andrew P.M. Wright - 30th September 2007
Official photographer & press officer, Swanage Railway.
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Nona Noble, photographed at Corfe Castle footbridge opening ceremony

By Andrew P.M. Wright.

Nona Noble – a quiet, determined and always reliable ‘big wheel’ in the history of the Swanage Railway for nearly 30 years – has sadly died after a short illness.

All who enjoy the Swanage Railway today are much in Nona's debt, whether they know it or not.

Married to Bob, who was the quiet rock of always there support behind everything that Nona did for the railway, Nona passed away unexpectedly in Poole Hospital on Tuesday, 28 August 2007. She was 82 years of age.

Nona and Bob had returned from holiday when she complained of feeling unwell and was rushed into hospital.

Nona’s passing has not only been a terrible shock for her family – both in this country and in the USA – but also a terrible shock for the family that is the Swanage Railway. Nona was always the totally reliable and efficient rock where all things Swanage Railway were concerned.

To put into perspective the time span of the Swanage Railway that Nona’s volunteering encompassed, when she and her husband Bob first became involved with the fledgling Purbeck Line, track was still being laid at Swanage, the first working steam locomotive had only just arrived and the first passenger-carrying train since January, 1972, was still more than six months away!

I last saw Bob and Nona back in April at the opening of the new footbridge at Corfe Castle – a splendid installation paid for by the 200 Club of which Nona and Bob were important contributing cogs for more than 20 years.

Nona Noble, photographed at Corfe Castle footbridge opening ceremony being introduced to David Quarmby CBE, former chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority. Also shown is David Quarmby with Bob Noble (centre) and Bill Trite (right).

Despite the rush of photographing the historic event, it was lovely for me to be able to exchange a few words with Nona and Bob as they looked on the new footbridge – and the rest of the railway – with a great sense of pride and achievement. And so they should because they both deserved it. Nona and Bob were tireless and unassuming workers for the railway project.

A memorial service for Nona attended by members of the Swanage Railway took place at the Methodist Church in Swanage High Street – followed by a service at Poole crematorium.

Always friendly and cheerful, Nona worked hard and quietly in the background – never seeking the limelight – from her home in Swanage. The hours of work that she put into the railway were immense, ever piece of correspondence she received being replied to personally and in detail. From the garden of their detached house, Bob and Nona could see and hear the train leaving Swanage station for Herston, the steam carrying over the rooftops of King’s Road West.

When Nona and Bob became involved with the Swanage Railway in 1978 when the railway was very different – indeed a world away – from the railway that we see and enjoy today.

The first passenger train to run at Swanage since January, 1972, was still a year away and the very real prospect of the Swanage Railway’s plans being killed off by a bypass being built on the site of Corfe Castle station was on the cards – included in plans by Dorset County Council. The railway was still fighting tooth and nail to ensure that it could stay in its rented base at Swanage station.

When Nona unexpectedly passed away, the railway had connected with the national railway network, the first diesel and steam locomotives had run down to Swanage from the main line and more than 200,000 passengers a year were being carried between Norden park and ride and Swanage.

Nona lived a full and active life – 30 of those years tirelessly and patiently working for the good of the Swanage Railway, a cause that Nona and her husband Bob felt passionately about.

Nona was born in India in 1925, coming to Britain at the age of five when her family settled in Scunthorpe in Lincolnshire. Ironically, just over 40 years later, the contractors that British Rail chose to lift the Swanage branch track for scrap were Eagre & Company of Scunthorpe!

During the Second World War, Nona served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and that service included a stint in Germany. With the coming of peace and Nona being demobbed, she returned to the family home in Scunthorpe.

But she was a talented young woman with skills and ambitions and soon Nona moved to London to become a civil servant as a secretary and personal assistant with the new Labour Government – based in the Treasury and working, for among ministers, Sir Stafford Cripps.

Equipped with fast and accurate short-hand and a flair for efficient organization, attention to detail and keeping to time, Nona and her colleagues accompanied ministers to high level meetings, including summits as Europe struggled to rebuild itself after the ravages of the Second World War.

That move to London was to change Nona’s life because such were her skills that she was asked to work with other Treasury staff in Washington, USA, as part of the post-war Marshall Plan.

It was while Nona was attending church in Washington one Sunday that she met her husband to be, Bob Noble. She always joked that while most GI brides met their husbands in this country – only to be whisked across the Atlantic to their new home – Nona had to travel over to the USA to secure hers!

In 1950, at the start of the new decade that promised so much after the misery and deprivations of the Second World War, Bob and Nona were married. Bob came from Ohio in the USA and the couple had four children – two sons and two daughters.

After a full working life, Nona and Bob retired to Swanage from Ohio in the USA in 1978, settling in Swanage. They were recruited by Mike Stollery during the four days of February, 1978, which saw Swanage well and truly snowed in. Mike had been dispatched to recruit Nona and Bob to the railway cause by another great, and sadly deceased, character of the early days of the Swanage Railway – Dorothy Gosling. Dorothy and her husband Don campaigned against British Rail running down and closing the line to Swanage since the mid-1960s.

Nona edited the Swanage Railway's magazine between the late 1970s and the late 1980s. Nona carried out the whole process – from receiving reports, writing copy and checking proofs to envelope stuffing and taking them down to Swanage post office for franking. Nona was chiefly responsible for keeping everyone informed of what was happening and for providing a forum for discussion and comment.

While Nona undertook her duties, Bob printed the magazine in a print shop that he has set up in Swanage High Street next to the Methodist Church where Nona's funeral was held. The first copies of the magazine were duplicated by Pete Ashton.

The magazine started off as an A4 sized photocopy before becoming a bulging A5 booklet. As a teenager living near Blandford – and only being able to get down to Swanage occasionally by bicycle – I can remember the anticipation of receiving the magazine and reading with excitement that the track had advanced another couple of hundred yards, more rolling stock had been acquired and another industrial steam locomotive had arrived to haul the soon to be launched passenger train service to Herston Halt which was being built one mile out of Swanage.

Nona’s gave up the many stresses and strains of editorship in 1989 when David Clifford took over the production and it took another great leap forward – becoming a glossy covered A4 colour magazine. Nona’s dedication to the cause had nurtured and developed a successful magazine that helped to drive enthusiasm and fund-raising for the Swanage Railway, as well as spread the railway’s message far and wide.

But, the Swanage Railway’s magazine was not Nona’s only work for the rapidly re-emerging Purbeck Line. She was also membership secretary for the railway from the late 1970s through to the mid-1990s – a duty that Nona took very seriously with her work being meticulous. She took the time to reply personally and at length to every letter that she received to in detail. That genuine and very caring attitude meant that members felt that they were really part of the family that was the Swanage Railway – no matter how far away they were; across the county, across the country or across the world.

By now, you are probably wondering where Nona got the time to undertake all this work for the railway. I don’t think that 24-hour days existed in the Noble household – they must have been longer or Nona did not need much sleep! In addition to her duties, Nona was the secretary of the 200 Club – which now has 639 members – until she was 80 years old some two years ago.

Since the late 1970s, the 200 Club has raised more than £100,000 for the Swanage Railway and a recently completed project was the Corfe Castle footbridge with before that Swanage signal box. A current project for the 200 Club is the re-instatement of the new Corfe Castle signal box on the ‘down’ platform which was demolished by British Railways in the mid-1950s when the new signal box in the extension to the porter’s lobby was opened. When 200 Club started back in the early 1980s, it funded much-needed items for the locomotive department, carriage and wagon and permanent way departments. In fact, the 200 Club purchased the railway's first ballast wagon – a Walrus – as well as its first carriage cleaning machine and a very useful mobile crane.

Always keen to fly the flag for the Swanage Railway – and bang the drum with an almost missionary zeal – Nona also compiled and wrote the Swanage Railway page in the free 'Purbeck Gazette' door to door monthly magazine for some ten years, Mike Walshaw taking over the reins a year or two back.

On a personal level, I have much to thank Nona and Bob for – and I have very happy memories of their tea and cake hospitality when an exuberant teenager full of enthusiasm turned up with his bicycle at their front door with ideas for the Swanage Railway’s magazine. Nona always quietly encouraged my picture taking and my writing – being keen to include human interest Swanage Railway then and now articles as well as black and white news pictures in the magazine. Colour reproduction was then a world away.

Nona also encouraged my writing – creating the ‘Wright Lines’ section of the magazine – and was keen that I write the history of the Swanage Railway for national publication. The result was two very different books being published by Ian Allan Ltd – a ‘Railway World Special’ that went to three editions (1987 to 1991) and ‘The Swanage Branch – Then and Now’ in 1992. Nona’s quiet and gentle encouragement of my writing led on to me becoming the Swanage Railway’s first dedicated press officer and official photographer in 1987 which, in turn, led to me enjoying a 14 year career as a news and features journalist and photographer. Like so many other areas of the Swanage Railway, I have so much to thank Nona Noble for and my heart-felt condolences go to Bob and the family on their great loss at this very difficult time.

M7 No. 30053 carrying the tribute to Nona Noble, photographed approaching Corfe Castle.

Throughout Sunday, 2 September, 2007, Victorian-designed M7 No. 30053 built at Nine Elms in London during 1905 carried a wreath on its smokebox in tribute to Nona Noble while hauling that day’s services between Swanage, Herston, Harman’s Cross, Corfe Castle and Norden park and ride. I can still remember Nona’s excitement and enthusiasm when the locomotive was returned from the USA by the Southern Repatriation Group – arriving at Felixstowe Docks in April, 1987, and officially being welcomed at Swanage shortly afterwards during a special ceremony and with Union Jack and Stars and Stripes flags proudly flying from its smokebox.

Driver Les Frampton and fireman Barry Light who securely fixed the wreath and memorial plaque to the smokebox of M7 30053

Twenty years on from that historic arrival, Bob and members of the family from both sides of the Atlantic were on Swanage station platform to see the wreath proudly carried on the smokebox of M7 30053 as it ran in with another packed train from Norden park and ride. Bob and the family were visibly moved by the heart-felt tribute with Bob passing on his thanks for the tribute which was arranged by Bill Trite and carried out thanks to the kindness of Swanage Railway operations manager Steve Dyer as well the locomotive crews rostered on that day – including driver Les Frampton and fireman Barry Light who securely fixed the wreath and memorial plaque at the start of the day.

Andrew P.M. Wright has supplied over 60 photos of Drummond M7 0-4-4 tank No. 30053 in service carrying the tribute to Nona Noble. To see the full set of photos, please scroll down the page.

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