Creaking Britain

 

In the past few weeks I’ve done quite a bit of travelling by public transport.

At the beginning of last month I went to Swansea in South Wales for a week’s walking around the Gower Peninsula with a group of Anglo-French friends.  My journey involved a bus to Leeds, train to Manchester and then another train to Swansea.  I arrived in Leeds in good time for the train, sat on it for an hour while, every few minutes  an announcement said there had been an “incident “ on the line” but we should be leaving sometime.  Eventually we were told that this train would not be leaving, but we could take a different train which went by another route.  So three hours or so after leaving home I passed through Bradford, some four miles up the road from my house, and eventually arrived in Manchester, but at the Victoria Station rather than the Piccadilly Station from which trains to Swansea would leave.  I couldn’t find any officials at Manchester Victor to tell me how to get to Manchester Piccadilly, so took a taxi. ( Costing £9. I’ve later discovered there is a free bus). I eventually caught a much later train than the one on which I was booked, arrived in Swansea at half past eight and so missed my dinner. 

Back home, later in the month a friend drove me to the funeral of a distinguished Liberal (Trevor Wilson) in Elland, and afterwards to Bradford where we had a pleasant lunch together.  Then my friend went off to play bridge and I want to the  Bradford Interchange to catch the bus to my home in Birstall.  However, the Interchange was closed* and boarded up with no official handy to tell me where, if at all, I could catch my bus.  Eventually a security guard kindly directed me to Nelson Street, but unfortunately by the longest way round. When I arrived I found that I had just missed a bus, and the electronic sign in the shelter said that the next one was “cancelled”.  That meant an hour’s wait so I decided to visit the National Media Museum just up the road. (As well as passing the time culturally It would also have the advantage of a lavatory.) However, the Museum also turned out to be closed for renovations and wouldn’t be open again until 2025.  So instead I went to admire the fountains in the lovely square outside the town hall, but left in plenty of time to catch the bus, which the electronic sign in the designated shelter said would come as scheduled.  I waited patiently.  Eventually the sign went off, but no bus had appeared.  After a few minutes, however it did, sailing down the road, already half-full of passengers, and would have gone straight past me had I not jumped almost in front to it with arms waving furiously.  Having first of all seemingly refused the driver did indignantly open the doors and remonstrated with me and let me get on, but gave no explanation as to why the bus had loaded at a place other than the official and advertised place at “Stand 1.”

 Last week a journey to Dorking via Leeds, King’s Cross, St Pancras, and Redhill (and back again at the end of the week) to stay with friends passed without disruption, but during the week, after a stunning evening performance of “As You Like it”** by the “Duke’s Theatre Company” at Wilton’s Music Hall in London’s East End, we took a fairly long walk to the nearest tube station in order to travel to Waterloo and from there back to Dorking.  Just as we arrived at the tube station officials were closing the gates.  The Circle Line was out of action because of a “signal failure”.  This then involved a frantic dash to another tube station (fortunately my companions had mobile phones with maps that told them where one was) and we eventually caught the last train, not from Waterloo but from Victoria, and arrived a my friends’  home at one thirty in the morning.

I said above that my  journey home form London  was without incident.  Well it was as far as Leeds, but, after dragging my suitcase half-way to what was the nearest bus stop to the railway station, I remembered that, because of roadwork, the bus had been re-routed, so I dragged myself and my luggage back to an earlier stop.  There the sign said that the next bus to my home had been “cancelled.” Happily another bus which passed through  the town  adjacent to my home arrived shortly afterwards and I took that instead.  It involved lugging my luggage (are both words derived from a verb “to lug”?) about three times as far as normal, but I made it.

 Yes, I know that compared with the horrors of Ukraine, Gaza, Somalia and lots of other places, not forgetting the disgraceful riots in various parts of the UK, and that a third of our children aren’t properly fed, these are trivial inconveniences. But in this “sixth richest economy in the world” they shouldn’t be happening. “Incidents” will, of course, happen in the best regulated economies, but we should be able to make alternative arrangement with the minimum of delay.  And above all, we should have personnel available to advise frustrated passengers of what the arrangements are.

* It had been built of the "crumbly concrete" which has also led to the closure of may schools.

** It's interesting that, at £24 per person, this was not only the cheapest but by common consent the most enjoyable of the five theatrical productions we saw.