When the Train is in the Station Please Refrain from …………
When I was a lad, when men were men and women knew their place in life – only joking - we sometimes used to travel, as a family, on British Rail. On occasions we had breakfast served in the buffet car by a very well dressed steward, who served up a ‘proper’ full English breakfast including BR sausages (bangers), which were as thick as your arm. He also served coffee from two pots, one of which contained black coffee and the other hot milk. He would carry out the near impossible feat of pouring both at once into a smallish cup while keeping his balance against the movement of the carriage. We children always hoped that he would miss his target and pour hot liquid all over the table cloth – but he never did!
I recall arriving late for the Ludlow train to Shrewsbury. It was just pulling out of the station as we arrived on the platform. Disaster – but guess what? The guard waved his red flag, the train stopped, we got on. The guard waved his green flag and off we went. Service or what?
How things have changed. A recent visit to a railway station, Crewe to be exact, was a real eye opener. I did manage to find the car park but it all went downhill from there. How on earth are you supposed to get tickets from the machine with no one to help. The café was closed and I had no change for the food and drink dispenser. The waiting room was a tip, badly lit and cold. Teenagers were draped around listening to their Ipods or tapping at mobile phones with trouser waist bands nearer their ankles than their hips.
I was booked on the overnight sleeper to Inverness and was promised a full English breakfast, which was brought to my cabin at 7.00 am the next morning. Imagine my horror, having dreamt all night of British Rail Bangers etc. to be presented with a microwave pack with a greasy sausage, rasher of shrivelled bacon and something that I suppose was egg but looked like some sort of ghastly yellow fungus, and not a baked bean in sight! Of course I did the only thing that I could under the circumstances – left it, got off the train and went for a proper fry up at Charlie’s the best greasy spoon in Inverness.
Stephen Habershon is Forestry Consultant to Balfours and can be contacted through Balfours' Offices in Craven Arms on 01588 673314.