Steam in the Blood

About the Book

This book is all about trains and my experiences with them together with the years of service in the locomotive area. I am recording as best as I can in this book the memoirs of my time as a fireman on the South African railways and as a scrap metal merchant in Northern Rhodesia now known as Zambia. The idea of writing of my experiences germinated when I was working on contract in the Republic of Mali, North Africa. I was commissioning a hydroelectric power station and, as there was nothing to do on off days, decided to write my memoirs. The more I wrote the more the memories came back, and I was eventually astounded of what I remembered.

About the Author

My name is Eric James Cameron. I was born in Port Elizabeth, Republic of South Africa, on 27 July 1940 and was educated at Sydenham Primary School and Victoria Park High in Port Elizabeth. After high school, I joined the South African Railways as a fireman and remained in the service for five years until immigrating to Northern Rhodesia, now known as Zambia. I managed a scrap metal business in the town of Mufulira on the Congo border for two years and then returned to South Africa, where I started my career in power generation. My career in power generation spanned forty-five years, and I worked up through the ranks to the position of senior shift supervisor in five different power stations, fossil-fired, pumped-storage, hydroelectric, and open-cycle gas turbine stations. I was married in 1965 and was blessed with four children, three daughters and a son. I retired in 2009 at the age of sixty-nine.