O. S. Nock - Life As An Author

Life As An Author

When Nock joined, Westinghouse was enjoying much work with the newly formed "Big Four" in moving from mechanical signalling to electrically controlled systems, however the early 1930s saw a slump in work with many there fearing for their jobs. To supplement his income Nock took a correspondence course in journalism after answering an advertisement entitled 'More Profit from Writing'. His first article was entitled 'Carlisle, a Station of Changes' and appeared in the Railway Magazine in January 1932. He had more success soon after when a mini-feature entitled ‘Hyde Park's ghost trains’ appeared in the Evening News. Over the following 2 years Nock had 16 articles published, but he was concerned that either his writing or his job would be jeopardised if he was published under his own name, so everything except contributions to the Railway Magazine, which was considered something of a joke in some professional circles, was written under a pen name; often using his second name of Stevens prefixed by two letters CK from his surname, or under the pseudonym of 'Railway Engineer'. Nock also worked to develop his writing skills away from Railway subjects and through his love of the country and keenness on purely pictorial landscape photography he found an occasional market in The Motor. Articles such as 'A Lonely Scottish Lido', 'The Gateway of the Lakes' and 'The Country of St Abb' appeared, despite Nock not owning a car. Nock himself considered the article 'Autumn in Moidart' which appeared under his own name in the Glasgow Herald in November 1934 to be his best, but after this writing about Railways began to take off.

On 15 May 1937 Nock married Olivia Hattie Ravenall at Bushey parish church before taking her on honeymoon on the Flying Scotsman. They settled in a large house on Sion Hill, Bath, where they had a daughter and a son. It was here that Nock created an O gauge model railway with twenty-three hand-built locomotives.