Pop music legend and President of the Railway Benefit Fund Pete Waterman talks about the importance of the RBF as he visits the Very Light Rail National Innovation Centre, Dudley.

Express & Star

Transcript

00:00i am president of the rbf which is the railway benefit which looks after the welfare of railway

00:05people retired and that are still at work because everybody has this myth about that all railway

00:13drivers are on 80 000 pound a year you know they all drive roll royces or bentleys they all go to

00:18the south of france for their holidays they got second home in sri lanka well that might be true

00:24but it ain't true of 98 of the railway staff a lot of our staff are finding very difficult to make a

00:32living and we do know of people who actually sleep in their cars because they can't afford to live in

00:39the house and to do their job and that's what we do we look after those people that are finding it

00:45very difficult now to cope with modern life gambling is a problem of course we have a no drink no drugs

00:52policy on the railway so that's not such a problem but it is a problem divorces are a problem so we're

00:59there to help and i get a great thriller listening to some of these people because they realize just

01:06how lucky you are to do what you do i mean this week i've seen something i never thought i'd see

01:13you might see in my lifetime um one of the guys that works for me that just used to be the head of the

01:21hsbc bank tell me a story this week which as working people shot me his daughter had gone for an interview

01:32for a job and we have a saying at work particularly just we're in the record industry where there's a scheme

01:42there's a schema now the modern scheme is you go for an interview for eight hours worth that's all

01:54that people offer you it's eight hours so they're taking on five people to do one job but you only

02:00can do eight hours because that avoids national insurance and pay where have we come to when we're

02:10taking on people to do particularly young people leaving school with ambition to do eight hours worth

02:17that's so district when i started work we were still working saturday mornings we were still doing

02:23a 45-hour week work is not a place of horror work is a place of joy if you want that's where the

02:34railway men are always fantastic because they love their jobs in the pop industry jason donovan didn't

02:41used to come to work the camera in his body railway men go to work take pictures of their engines

02:46so if that's not a great word first don't believe but the whole point about the rbf is people we look

02:55after people and that's what to me rail 200 should sell it not necessarily the people like jason they call

03:08robert stevenson you know or the other great railway builders people that make the railway work

03:15work we run a scheme called the heart of gold i promise you when i go to the heart of gold awards

03:22and we do them twice a year those members of staff have been nominated by other members of staff

03:28for going beyond what they're expected to do i promise you sometimes i have to literally go out

03:36the route for five minutes because they're so outrageously unbelievable the lengths that people go to

03:43to look after other people and they have customers they're not other railway workers these are

03:48customers and they're the people i think we should be celebrating for 200 years the people that have

03:55showed you where your plan is that have helped you on your train they'll help the trains during the

04:01second world war the heroism of railway workers is phenomenal if you see the george crosses that were

04:09given to railway men in the middle of air raid it's incredible to think of today now you have to

04:15wear an orange vest right can you imagine in a bombing raid wearing an orange vest so i'm going to open

04:23this event because you've talked enough thank you for listening you've been a great audience enjoy your day

04:29we'll officially hope thank you

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