The Princess, the Railway and the Donkey

Recently I heard a most curious tale about a polish princess, a railway crossing and a donkey. No, it’s not a joke but a true story dating back some 50 years. By the banks of the river Stour in the hamlet of Rodbridge there stood a railway crossing. In the early sixties the small white cottage nearby was occupied by a crossing keeper with a pretty unique history. She was a middle-aged polish émigré but what was unusual was that she was descended from royalty. Her name was Her Royal Highness Princess Madelein von Dembinska. Since the end of the First World War her family had been exiled but her mother had continued to fight to try and reclaim property in their homeland of Poland. Unfortunately they had not succeeded in their fight and when their mother died the the princess and her brother (Prince Eric) and sister had fallen on hard times and had been forced to take up employment in order to live. The princess was a well known local character in the villages around the railway crossing and she got on well with her neighbours.

Until that is the day that a local farmer called at her cottage to say that one of the shafts on his donkey cart had broken and he needed to leave the donkey in the meadow adjacent to the level crossing whilst he took the cart to the local blacksmith to be mended. He wanted to know if the princess minded just keeping the donkey’s water topped up whilst he was gone. The princess agreed. A couple of days later the farmer returned to collect the donkey. He called in the crossing cottage to thank the princess. He found her in a bit of a tizzy and asked what was the matter. She told him that she had not slept well for two nights. She explained that at four the previous morning she had rushed down to open the crossing gates, her alarm had not gone off, in fact she was only alerted to the fact that the express mail train was approaching because she had been woken by the strident two tone warning siren of the train. But when the train didn’t arrive she realised she had risen an hour and a half too early. After returning to bed she went back to sleep until her alarm went at the correct time and she opened the gates. She said for the 5:30 train. The same thing had happened that morning aswell. She had been woken by the train siren in the early hours. Again she had rushed down to open the gates. The farmer commented that she was very diligent to react in such a quick and conscientious manner. But the princess explained that this time she soon realised that it was not the siren of the train that had been waking her but the donkey heehawing in a similar fashion. Consequently she was insisting the farmer removed his donkey as quickly as possible.