Think Positive lettering with a cross on the wrist

The 6.42 went through this morning without stopping, which is how things are now they have cut the branch to two trains a day. I stood at the gates with the bell going and counted the carriage windows the way Dad taught us, one for every sleeper, because a train that size takes long enough to let you think. Nobody looked out. Nobody ever does at a crossing.

You asked before you left whether I'd be all right out here on my own with the gates, the telegraph and nobody to talk to but the goats. I said yes because you were nineteen with your bag already packed. It's mostly true. Dad's word is still painted on the board in the hut, in his square capitals, and the rain has been at it so the I has gone soft at the edges. Where he drew his bar through the middle of it to mark the gate that needed mending, the paint has flaked away too. I keep meaning to touch it up. Every time I reach for the tin I see you on the platform with your hat in your hands, and I leave it.

The dangerous bit out here isn't the trains. It's the moment you decide the road is quiet and stop watching it. I've told the lorry men that for twenty years and they laugh at me, the same way you used to laugh when I nagged you about your bicycle lamp.

So this morning I took a stub of chalk to the board and wrote think above Dad's word, small, in my own hand. Then I walked out and lowered the gates for the milk tanker, and when its wheels had gone over the rails I could read the whole thing from the road. Look both ways, Tom. Write when you can.

Love, Ruth