East Lancs Railway

Many a "wartime event" attracts dickheads who want to dress up as SS officers. Thankfully in the intervening 11 years since that article was published people have become much more aware that it has no place.

 

To be honest I never understood why we had to have German uniforms in such events. This was wartime in the UK. The Germans never invaded and if you lived in the UK in the 1940s all you would have seen were allied uniforms. So anything else was inauthentic.
Coming back to the point though, this article was from 12 years ago. The general tone of the article is "probably shouldn't have done it, but he-ho". You can imagine if this had happened today, the reaction would be cataclysmic. It shows how much things have changed in such a short period of time and no wonder people struggle to keep up.

 

If you want to be authentic, the only germans, or any other non allied forces would have been POW's and then, only rank and file, certainly no officers, and they would have been wearing POW garb, not German field uniforms, and very unlikely to have been SS, as they would have been to high a risk to allow out to do an work and of course under armed guard,

 

I think those in the Channel Islands might have something to say about that.

 

Have they? The furore last year of the SVR canning their one says otherwise. Plenty of Mitty's were furious.

 

The channel Islands are not part of the UK!

 

Summary removal from their positions without due process? I hope not. The lesson of this episode is the investigation & judgement of both grievances and disciplinaries needs to be carried out fairly and via a process which is transparent to the person being investigated.

The dismissal of Joanne Crompton for ‘bringing the railway into disrepute via social media’ seems to be absurd since she actually said little or nothing about it until she was told she could no longer volunteer. It seems to me it’s the ELR management bringing their railway into disrepute in the way they’re (not) dealing with this matter.

 

Does anyone here know why Joanne is no longer on the footplate of west coast locos anymore?

I'm sure there is always a need for good skills on jubilees, Scots, 8fs and black fives over the s&c.

 

I see that Mike Kelly has put out an 'Open Letter'

11 May 2023
To staff and volunteers

The ELR have recently concluded an appeals process with Joanne Crompton. As part of this, Joanne had requested that her volunteer status be reinstated. Joanne had her volunteer status revoked because of the content of her social media posts and interactions during the investigation into her grievances and not the grievances she raised - these are unrelated events.

While Joanne may only have occasionally mentioned East Lancashire Railway directly on social media, during the appeal process all of her posts and social media interactions were reviewed in the context of what was taking place at that time and the influence and reach Joanne has on social media. Additional consideration was given to the posts Joanne made and engaged with after the investigation had concluded and in the lead up to the appeal. The interviews criticising the ELR that she gave to the national and heritage railway press were also taken into consideration.

The investigating officer concluded that her posts and social media engagements repeatedly brought the railway into disrepute, and significantly breached the ELR's social media policy.

All of our volunteers have the right to enjoy a safe, welcoming and rewarding experience when working at the railway. This very public situation has led to a complete breakdown in the working relationship between Joanne, some of her fellow volunteers, and the management of the railway. As a result, Joanne's volunteer status will not be returned.

Also, as part of the appeal, the investigating officer upheld the sexual harassment complaint and appropriate procedures will now follow and action taken in that regard.

Sexual harassment at East Lancashire Railway, or indeed in any environment, is unacceptable and we understand the emotional toll this takes on all individuals involved.

We strive to learn from all such experiences and will commission a full review, led by an independent HR expert, into our working environments, teams and culture. This is to ensure our staff and volunteers have the confidence and trust in our many safeguarding policies and procedures and that they are fit for purpose. If required, we will look at additional training and development as we go forward to meet the high standards that we set for ourselves.

The appeals process prevented us from saying very much and I apologise to those people who contacted me, but it was important that our grievance procedures were allowed to reach a conclusion.

Joanne made a positive contribution to the ELR in her time with us and we wish her well in all her future endeavours.

Keep the Faith.

I find it interesting that he's claiming that the social media issues are unrelated to Joanne's grievance, when if the procedures had been followed correctly in the first place and the grievances properly investigated in a timely fashion, the social media posts referred to would never have appeared...

I also love the way that the fact that Joanne's complaint of sexual harassment has been upheld at appeal is buried well down in the letter. To me, that should be right at the top. "We failed to protect this volunteer and didn't provide her with a safe workplace. Oh, and then we didn't investigate it properly."

 

I see on Facebook that Joanne will be making a statement, which will no doubt give a better account. She says she hoped to let it drop, but following Mike Kelly's open letter, which endeavours to paint her in a very bad light and then skims over the fact that she was allowed to be sexually harassed and discriminated against, she's not really got any other choice but to set the record straight.

In terms of the original 'inconclusive' independent investigation into her sexual harassment claim, the so-called 'independent investigator' was not only another ELR volunteer, he volunteers in a managerial role on the line and also undertakes paid work for them on a contract basis, so it's not hard to see why the original investigation didn't find in her favour. What makes it worse is that that same 'investigator' then took to social media to call Joanne a liar and demanding she apologise, making direct references to the investigation and the ELR. I'd argue that this behaviour makes the railway look really bad, and breaches the social media policy. I wonder if he will suffer the same fate - and if all pigs are fed and ready to fly!

 

Trust me, I'm right - and I wish I wasn't. I've witnessed some of this behaviour, unfortunately, and reported it. I got no response from the ELR's management at all. It seems to be more of a 'boys club' and if you're in the 'club', you're protected from any reproach. As for the HRA - their CEO posted in Steam Railway about inappropriate use of social media and the internet in general by volunteers, basically telling everyone to put up and shut up. Which, when you consider the ELR's General Manager is also on its Board of Directors, isn't really surprising. Oh, and just to add to that, the aforementioned 'independent investigator' also provides services to the HRA... so the mud from this is truly sticking everywhere.

 

What is most interesting is that the ELR’s management had issue with Joanne’s social media posts prior to her dismissal. The only posts I saw, other than a reply on Twitter to someone who asked why she wasn’t at the International Women’s Day event on 8th March, at which she expressed her displeasure (which doesn’t at all damage the railway’s reputation, because she could have been excluded for any number of reasons) is a cryptic post on Facebook that expresses her unhappiness, but doesn’t even mention railways at all, let alone the ELR. She only gave details after she was dismissed and was told this was the ‘final’ decision of the General Manager. Therefore, the ELR is being very unfair in considering any posts made following that dismissal. It’s pretty obvious that the decision to dismiss her was made before her complaint hearing, and that s
ocial media has nothing to do with it.

 

To be fair, a number of shows (not just at heritage railways but at other locations) feature re-enactors in Axis uniforms as an educational resource, and I don’t see the harm in that. Dressing as Hitler, a member of the SS or the Gestapo glorifies the horrors and it’s not acceptable in any way.

However, that issue was dealt with at the time and the big issue at the moment is the ELR management’s current behaviour, which is simple being glossed over and not dealt with. There has been no apology for Joanne and the railway managements failure to safeguard her or properly investigate her complaints, which in turn allowed the offender’s abhorrent behaviour to continue. Instead, they have tried to lay all blame at Joanne’s door, victim blaming in the extreme. She’s been accused of making the railway ‘unsafe’ through a couple of harmless social media posts, with no thought as to how genuinely unsafe they made the environment for her.

How many here would be willing to stand up and sign a petition in favour of the removal of Mike Kelly and Tracey Parkinson from their positions?

 

There seems to be a bit of an echo in the room here. The last few post by a newcomer, @Jaz , appear to be exact copies of those which @47472 posted yesterday. What is going on here?

Peter

 

You’ve spent too much time on the footplate Peter, now you are out of sync with the NatPres continuous loop.

 

You're not the only one, peter. 43729's post quoting one by 47472 also appears to have disappeared. Perhaps a Mod can explain what's happened for us simple folk?

 

Is that allowed? It sounds a bit dodgy to me. Do many posters on here have multiple IDs?

Anyway, thanks for the response.

Peter

 

I had used my husbands account, as I knew he had one, and I was struggling to set up my own account and wanted to comment on this thread because this is something I believe in passionately. However, my husband was unhappy to discover this fact because he prefers to remain impartial. The mods were correctly notified and I took their advised course of action.

I stand by my views, which are my own and are also represented elsewhere on my social media.

 

Welcome, Jaz. Keep up the good fight !