The Island's Swansong

XXIV - The End Of The Line

I was hit by a train. Metaphorically. Emotionally. The hat stand in the house, the stories her father told about Ulfstead... it all made sudden sense. To have stumbled upon (and been rescued by) a member of the Hatt family was mind-blowing.

Anne TophamHatt.

It even had the ring to it.

"I can see you've put the pieces together," the corner of Anne's mouth wrinkled into neither a smile nor a frown.

"You're a Hatt."

"I am," she looked back to the graves, "This was the family's first house on Sodor, bought when Bertram first moved here from Swindon in the early nineteen hundreds. The houses on the North of the Island were far cheaper than in the larger towns, though he moved South after getting a job on the railway. He eventually bought this place back when he was Controller, his first piece Of Sodor, and used it as a holiday home."

"Sentimental," I nodded.

"It runs in the family," Anne's wrinkles crept into a nostalgic smile, "Right down to wanting to be buried here." Her eyes darted to the spot to the right of Stephen's grave, her voice edging towards a break, "One day there'll be a fourth headstone."

My selfish urge for answers, answers that were so close, overrode the need for empathize with, for her. "Your father's stories of Ulfstead. They weren't stories."

"No."

"Your family knows more about this island than any other," I pressed, "They must know what happened to the railway."

"We don't just know," she sniffed, "We lived it."

"What was it?" I asked, impatient, "I've found information from the last ten to fifteen years, but nothing on the catalyst that brought the Island down."

"That's because there was no catalyst," she answered, quick and cold.

"What?"

"There was no sudden event," her tone became hard, hurt, "There was no disaster, no trouble, no confusion. Just the delayed inevitable."

"What was it?" my heart thudded in my rib-cage.

"It was nothing and everything, no one and everyone..."

"That makes no sense," I shook my head. Nothing added up.

"Everything that led Sodor to where it is now started a hundred years ago."

"One hundred?!" I half-gasped and chuckled, "That was before the Island became famous. Before the books, the show, everything..."

"That's how it was. A slow death..."

She took a deep breath, energizing herself for what was going to be a long, painful recital for her, but an absorbent, fulfilling euphoria for me. A sick trade, yet I made no objection. Whatever it said about me was for later. "I heard it all from my grandfather, and my father, and saw the last hurrah of the Island for myself. The problems began, like everything, with human conflict. Everything was fine before the second Great War. The railway was financially healthy, and on the cusp of more growth. But the war didn't hit the Island's economy too hard. What fractured was our demography. Many of Sodor's young men were enlisted, including my grandfather, and carted off to war. Very few came back. Many of the older men, professional railway workers, stayed to run the lines, and survived. At the time, after the war ended, everyone knew we'd recover. The young men were missed, leaving a physical void. But no one looked at what that meant for the Island's future. We were left with an aging demographic. The first seed in a long, drawn-out demise. There was no 'baby boom' on Sodor, not until much later, and nowhere near as high as other places."