Transports of Delight

[Donna Moore]

Trains

Christmas 2002 I spent in the soft and comfortable bosom of my family near Peterborough. After a wonderful vacation we set off on what was to be the journey from hell. Christmas Day I got the flu and I was feeling pretty ill. I wasn't really looking forward to travelling anyway, but it was made all the worse by the fact that British Rail, in their infinite wisdom, had ripped up the railway tracks between York and Darlington, at the busiest time of year, so part of our train journey was done by bus.

Our seats were booked for the first part of the journey in Coach F. When the train arrived at Peterborough, we walked along past all the carriages - A, B, C, D, E, G, H. No F. So we walked back, just in case a tipsy carriage assembler had put coach F somewhere else. Still no Effing F. I spied a guard, a way up the platform, so, battling through the thronging hordes, and slamming myself into a pillar in the process (I didn't get transported to Platform 9 3/4 so I guess I won't be off to Hogwarts this term), I ascertained that Coach F was now Coach C through the miracles of Alphabet Soup so we managed to get a seat just before the train left.

At York, we all trooped out of the train, through a muddy bog that the station staff euphemistically referred to as 'car park' and onto buses. By this point we were already running 15 minutes late. Not to worry, said the guard on the train, the train would be waiting for us at Darlington. Absolutely. It definitely wouldn't be going anywhere until we arrived, we had his assurances on that.

So we all piled onto the bus. The bus was one of those posh ones, where you go down a little flight of stairs to the loo. Good, since by this time I was desperate to go to the loo. I walked up the bus and descended the stairs, only to hear the booming voice of the driver over the bus's tannoy "Could someone tell that woman that the toilet isn't working". About 17 people called down the stairs "Oy, you, the woman with the red face, the toilet isn't working."

We arrived at Darlington 40 minutes late to catch our connecting train (you remember, the one that on no account, absolutely definitely posilutely would not have left without us?), only to find that it had left without us, and the next one wasn't for another hour or so. Since we'd missed the train we had seats booked for, we didn't have seats booked for this one but there would be a whole load of people who WOULD have had seats reserved. You could tell who they were - amongst the hordes of people on the platform they were the ones with really smug looks, the 4 bus loads of people who'd all arrived too late for our train just looked increasingly desperate, and were eyeing up those less fit than themselves, to determine their best chances of elbowing people out of the way to get a seat. By this time, I felt really, really awful, and promised the train guard (a different one from the lying sadist at York station) that I would vomit all over his shoes if he couldn't promise me a seat. He leaned over and whispered "I'll give you a tip since you're not well - Coach C has all the unbooked seats on it."

"My saviour. Thank you, thank you." I kissed his hands, sobbed into his British Rail jacket and promised him my uneaten British Rail sandwich (uneaten for very good reason I might add).

The train arrived. We sped down the platform past coaches H, G, F, E, D, B, A. D, B, A???? Had anyone reported this wholesale theft of railway carriages? Was someone, somewhere, setting up home in two cozy GNER carriages on a disused stretch of line somewhere between York and Darlington?

So, we grabbed seats in Coach D. I'm afraid I may have made rather a fool of myself as I clung to it sobbing "You'll never get me off this seat, never. Just leave me to die here. I've never harmed anyone." Anyway, it seemed to do the trick, no-one asked me to move for the whole journey. Not even the nice man in the white coat carrying the large butterfly net who hovered by my seat for the rest of the journey.

Buses

I knew the day was going to be a bad one, even before I got to work. There I was, standing at the bus stop, on a blowy, miserable November day in Glasgow. A drop of water plopped onto my face, just to the right of my nose. I looked up. It wasn't raining at that precise moment although it had just finished and looked as though it was about to bucket down all over again. However, I just assumed that a drop of water had been blown by the wind and landed just there on my face.

The bus arrived and I got on. I had to stand as it was full. By mistake (as you do) I caught the eye of a couple of people who smiled at me. "How friendly" I thought "It's a really crap day, we're all on our way to work for another day with our noses at the grindstone and yet people can still find it in them to smile at a fellow traveller". A warm glow surrounded me and I smiled at more people, who smiled back.

Then, about ten minutes into the journey, *plop*, a drop of water hit my face, just to the right of my nose. I looked up. It STILL wasn't raining. Mainly because I was actually standing in the bus, under a roof. It did take a while for that fact to sink in (I blame the earliness of the morning rather than the fact that I am a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic, but you may have other ideas). Hmmmm, curious, but still, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation.

A few minutes later *plop* - exactly the same place. By this time, even I was coming to the conclusion that Something Odd Was Going On. I reached my hand up to my head and discovered a huge, enormous, brown,wet, leaf sitting on top of my hair. Jauntily, like a hat fashioned by the House of Autumn for their "Doesn't Donna Look Stupid" Collection. So I casually pulled it off and threw it on the floor, trying to look as though going to work with a huge, enormous, brown, wet leaf on your head was just a normal day to day thing, and trying to ignore the sniggers around me.

Oh well, at least I cheered a few people up on their journey to work.I must have looked like a new addition to the ranks of the Flower Fairies. You know, there was delicate little Buttercup Fairy, or gossamer light Dandelion Fairy. And then there was me - chubby little Dutch Elm Disease Fairy.

I do believe that people on my route to work look forward to seeing my embarrassment on the buses. It was an office night out recently, so I'd set off for work a bit dressed up. I had bought these glossy tights which were so short I think they had been specially made for the Seven Dwarves' cross dressing younger brother, the seldom
mentioned Frilly.

I got on the bus and was on my merry way. The bus was so busy I was standing up when, to my horror, I realised that the glossy tights had performed a chemical reaction with my shiny slip, and had slid down my legs so far that the crotch was now at my knees. I tried my best to hoick them up. This is REALLY not easy to do in a casual, but secret, manner - especially when the bus is really crowded. Anyway, I managed it, but they almost immediately slipped down again. So I had to get off the bus and walk back home, my knees pressed closely together,taking little mincing steps, to change them. As I got off the bus, there were lots of giggles, finger pointing, and, I'm devastated to reveal, a certain amount of retching.

Automobiles

And then there are taxis. I think whenever I ring a taxi firm the call goes out "Taxi for Donna - send the nutter."

I had to leave the house really early one morning to go to the airport to get a flight to London. The taxi wasn't supposed to turn up until 6.15 but he came at 6am, so I had to rush out in a fluster. I'm surprised I managed to get all my clothes on. Anyway, I decided against saying anything since practically the first thing my taxi driver told me was that he was a trained killer and could kill three people at once with his bare hands. Well thank you, that's just the sort of credentials I want from a taxi driver. And then he told me that his old boss annoyed him so much that he (the taxi driver) threw his (the old boss) leg up on the roof of the office. Luckily for everyone involved (including my nerves) it was artificial (the leg, not the roof).

About a week after this, and still a bit nervous of taxi drivers, I went out for the evening. Deciding not to brave Glasgow's buses after dark, I took the (marginally) safer option of a taxi home. Before we'd gone very far, he had to pull out suddenly to avoid another taxi which had pulled up in front of him without indicating. There was a beeping horn behind us which I never gave another thought to until we stopped at traffic lights a bit further along. A bloke on a motorbike pulled up alongside and started hammering on the window.

Despite the panicked thought waves I was sending to the driver "Don't put the window down, just get the hell out of here", he put the handbrake on and pulled the window down. The motorbike rider leaned over and said "What the fuck do you think you're doing you fucking bampot?" The two thoughts running round my head were "Oh my God, we're going to be killed in a road rage attack" and "nice use of the word 'bampot'. An increasingly heated argument ensued with lots of macho posturing and finger pointing and burst blood vessels. Eventually the taxi driver got out of the car and...I kid you not...gave the man on the motorbike a Glasgow kiss. Just to clarify here - he headbutted the man on the motorbike - who, being a law abiding citizen, was wearing a nice, strong, hard crash helmet. I looked on, my ghast completely flabberred. I think the man on the motorbike felt exactly the same way, as he just looked at the taxi driver, bemused. I was just about to roll down my window and say to the taxi driver "Oy mate, he was quite right, you ARE a fucking bampot", when he got back into the cab and we carried on home.

I'm beginning to think I should just walk everywhere.

[LC Fraser]

Is this normal UK travel? It bears a slight resemblance to my train trip from Stoke on Trent to London a couple of years ago. Only I only had the one thing to deal with. One train that was late. A seat perched on a ledge outside the loo and next to an elderly drunken Irishman who kept hitting on me. Fortunately there was a young gallant on my other side who talked to me enough to protect me from the resident drunk. It was - interesting. Things like that do not seem to happen here.