WE TAKE it for granted that water will come out when we turn on a tap.

But for Doreen Santi and her family, life was much more difficult.

They had to rely on passing steam trains for supplies of fresh water.

Mrs Santi was the keeper of Islip level crossing on the Oxford-Bicester-Bletchley line and her railway cottage had a contaminated well and no power supply, sewer or mains water.

So she and her family had to wait for passenger and freight trains to deliver fresh water in milk churns.

When the Oxford Mail published a story in 1965, Mrs Santi was nearly at her wits’ end.

The daily goods train, which picked up their four four-gallon churns for refilling at Bicester London Road station, had been reduced to alternate days.

Mrs Santi said: “This means pretty strict rationing. I use the water the children wash in to do the floors. Even so, I have little left to cook with.

“It sometimes gets to the stage where we think twice about making a cup of tea.

“The water we get often has a film of coal dust on the surface and needs boiling.

“The children can never get a cool drink at home in hot weather.

“I’ve been on the phone countless times to Bicester when the train hasn’t come to pick up our empties.”

Stanley Toffrey, the Islip stationmaster, appeared less than sympathetic to Mrs Santi’s plight.

He said she only had to call him and he would arrange for a passenger train to stop.

“It is entirely her fault if she doesn’t let us know,” he said.

Mrs Santi said she had tried to resolve the issue by ordering more churns from Paddington. But when they arrived, they were “riddled with holes”.