Councillor Barker collects tickets at the station from Mrs Elizabeth Lakeland and her two grandchildren, Mark and Michael Spendlove. Soon Councillor Barker's job will not be needed, but he still shares a joke with the passengers.

With the coming of pay trains next month Hapton station will be completely unmanned from May 3rd 1971 onwards, it was reported at a meeting of the parish council this week. In a letter to the council, British Rail explained that tickets will be issued and collected on the trains in an attempt to use staff more productively. Councillor J. Barker, who has been a ticket collector at the station for nine and a half years, pointed out to the council that in the event of a delay, early morning workers would not know whether the train was late or when it was likely to arrive if nobody was at the station to tell them. Both employees at Hapton station will be offered other jobs as a result of the change.