I was so proud of myself as I walked into the train station. It was 11am sharp, on a Sunday, and I’d spoken at EPOP, the political academics’ annual conference, the night before. Of course, drink had been taken during the gala dinner, and of course we’d gone to the pub afterwards.
Still, I’d managed to get up at a reasonable time, drag myself to the breakfast room downstairs, go back up, pack my things, and get back to Exeter St David’s some minutes before my train back to London. My plan to be back home in time for a late lunch was looking good.
Well, ish. When I entered the station I found it to be suspiciously busy, and generally full of people milling about yet somehow not going anywhere.
I looked up at the board and found out what the problem was. My train, the 11.06am, was now scheduled to leave around an hour and 15 minutes later than planned, and due to stop at Reading instead of Paddington. Oh joy.
I spoke to a member of staff and was told that my best bet would be to take the next Bristol train, then change there and find my way to London. It would be quite the detour but hey, what choice did I have? I nodded, thanked him, and walked straight to the vending machine. I needed sustenance.
For the avoidance of doubt, I didn’t get snacks: instead, I went to get myself a novel. Just under a century ago, Sir Allen Lane found himself at St David’s without anything to read, and – long story short – that made him launch Penguin Books. Back in 2023, the publishing house honoured him by introducing a book vending machine in the station.
Armed with Ismail Kadare’s The Palace of Dreams, I began my odyssey. It started promisingly, in that I managed, thanks to polite smiles and a spirited walk, to bag myself an unreserved seat. Few were able to say the same, as we discussed with my neighbour. A middle-aged northern woman, she was on her way to Doncaster and about as optimistic about the prospect of arriving on time as I was.
It didn’t take long for us to become friends. Well, it took us until Taunton, as that was where the manager explained that the train was overly full, to the point of being unsafe, and the platform was overly full, and somehow their plan was to not let anyone in, and in fact ask some people to get off. You’d have an easier time sticking a camel through the eye of a needle.
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“Another train is coming in 20 minutes,” the manager said, pleadingly, and in the end our train took so long to shake off its extra passengers that said other train left before we did. That’s when we looked at each other and collapsed into a fit of giggles.
Somehow, after that, every other desperate, enraging update just made us cackle like teenagers. It was great.
When I left to run – run – across Bristol Temple Meads to try and catch my train to London, she bade me farewell with the fondness of an old friend. I was sad to leave her, but I was relieved to make it to the Paddington service. Oh, how naive I was. Obviously that train was going to be massively delayed, because of… oh, honestly who knows.
Still, I got to befriend an excellent five-month old baby while sitting there, travelling out of the West Country at the pace of an injured snail, so maybe all was not lost. In fact, by the time I got to London, I wasn’t as grumpy as I could have been, as my companions really had managed to cheer me up. A special medal ought to be awarded to the little shih tzu I got to pet in the aisle.
What would have happened to me if this journey hadn’t been an exception, though? That’s what I asked myself as I made my way to my flat. I found the experience novel and vaguely amusing, because I leave the capital relatively rarely at weekends. How about the people who do, because they have no choice?
Something like this happening to me regularly would probably radicalise me; make me spit feathers, and make me wonder if the state really can do anything at all. I would struggle to find the silver linings, as I did here because it was a one-off. Isn’t that the sort of thing the government should be worrying about?
No 10 talks about asylum seekers and about hotels and flags – so many flags! – because it assumes that’s why people are furious. I’m no great strategist or political genius, but may I suggest that the bread-and-butter issues are called that for a reason? If people were able to, say, reliably go to work or see their relatives across the country, they would probably be happier to give the prime minister a hearing.
In the meantime, though: none of you will ever get me to go outside the M25 on a Sunday again.
