What the ____ am I doing here?

[Written for Writers Live Open Mic at Southwell Library on 24/11/23]

Every now and then, I go off on a train day. Firstly, I head for a railway station in the car. I make for one where I know I can park easily and cheaply and is in the general direction of the place I want to visit. I start my day at about 9, so that when I buy my ticket, I will qualify for a cheap off-peak return. I also then avoid the rush hour on the road and I have not had to get up at stupid o’ clock. I buy my ticket at the station, having worked out beforehand my itinerary and likely timings. Most stations I start at still have ticket offices, which I’m pleased to say is likely to continue to be the case, for now, at least.

On arrival at my chosen location, I make straight for the loo - regular bodily function plus my “Sorry to rush you” medication. Secondly, I find a station sign as a backdrop to a selfie on my phone, which I then send to my mates, along with a witty comment. The subliminal message is what a good time I’m having in my retirement and how extraordinarily adventurous and fit I still am, breezily careering around the country on a whim. No one replies.

Then a go and find a platform bench. It has to be somewhere out in the open with a good view of the action on the tracks. I prefer an old seat with authentic railway heritage, common on the former Great Western Railway, but less likely anywhere else. I sit on my bench and relax. I am suddenly thoroughly at home again. I have been doing this all my life, off and on. This is my time, in my choice of place. It is my diversion from my real life - the one that occupies all the other times and spaces. This is who I am, I decide again.  

Within seconds, though, I occasionally have a sharply contrasting thought. What the fuck am I doing here? I should be out helping people - driving old people to hospital or chopping down vegetation to maintain a wildlife corridor on the trail. I could at least be doing something more constructive, like completing a useful DIY task at home, or creative, like writing a book. Instead, I am being totally self-indulgent with no benefit to humanity at all, and at some cost to the environment, thanks to my otherwise unnecessary car journey to the station.

So, what am I actually doing here? I’m writing down train numbers, looking up those numbers in a list in a book, in preparation, if I haven’t seen them before, for underlining them with my six-inch plastic ruler when I get home. I’ve been doing this for 62 years. I still get a buzz out of creating continuous runs of underlined numbers and even more so when I have seen all the locomotives in the same class to complete the set. Then I stop recording them, of course, now barely recognising their formerly so important digits.

Is this my version of the hunter gatherer gene? I’d have been crap at the hunting bit, for sure. Nevertheless, should I have given it up about 57 years ago? Maybe, but when steam ended and my friends packed in, I carried on. I must have needed it more than they did. In my twenties and thirties, when I was too embarrassed to admit to still being a train spotter, I wrote down the numbers in the margin of my dual-purpose copy of the Guardian during any rail journey I made. I obviously didn’t want anyone to think I wasn’t cool or anything.

My next move is to take some photos of trains. I like the challenges this poses. I have a modestly priced camera with a pretty decent telephoto lens, but no way have I mastered the art. Nevertheless, I get a kick out of trying for a clear image, a variety of subject matter, interesting angles, uncommon background settings and imaginative compositions. When I look through them all afterwards on the computer screen at home, I see that most of them have surprisingly morphed into some rather ordinary three-quarter front-end snaps of trains with no artistic ingredient evident at all.  

It must be lunch time. I won’t allow myself food until mid-day, unlike the early days when I’d finished the lot by half eleven. I absolutely love my one round cheese sandwich with crisps, enjoyed on my bench and surrounded - up to a point - by the sights and sounds of my youth. I can even get a decent cup of coffee to go with it these days. Now that is an improvement.

I always leave the station but never venture very far from it. I’m on the look-out for an all-encompassing view of the station frontage. This can sometimes be surprisingly difficult and is subject to the configuration of the surrounding roads and the lay-out of nearby buildings. I have come to appreciate many different aspects of our railway heritage as time has gone by, so it’s not just the trains that I’m here for. Station design varies enormously. Some I love and some I really don’t, but increasingly, I understand how things got to be how they are and I find that quite rewarding.

Back on the station, I also spend time watching people making journeys. I’m usually drawn to larger and busier stations, anyway, so usually they are railway junctions. Places where people change trains fascinate me. There are the seasoned, purposeful travellers who know the ropes and just where they are heading, so confident and assured. There are also those for whom the whole experience is clearly an unfamiliar nightmare. Am I on the right platform at the right time? Is my train the next or the one after that? Do I have to change again? Can I sit anywhere? Is it just first-class at the front? Where is the quiet coach? Is there a refreshment trolley on board or should I get a sandwich now? Luckily, these days there is abundant help available, with VDU displays updated to the second and those pervasive staccato and rather robotic station announcements, so much clearer to make out than in the past, though without the evocative regional accents.

Then there’s the parting and meeting scenarios, perhaps most dramatically played out these days at international airports and the London terminus stations. Heartfelt moments of human interaction, those being torn apart, and those ecstatic at the very moment of their timely reunion. Stations are also great mixers of social class. Anyone who thinks that’s no longer significant, I’d point towards Kate Fox’s Watching the English for a bit of an eye opener. There may be first-class seats and first-class lounges, but the barriers, concourse, platforms, buffets, as well as the corridors on trains, are universal mixing points, sometimes uncomfortably so for those who usually go for exclusivity.

By early afternoon I’ve generally had my fix. I want to make my journey home in daylight so that I can appreciate the landscape I’m passing through once more. I never read or sleep on a train. My eyes are glued to the window as the world outside unfurls. I also miss the evening rush hour on the road. People travelling home from work by car can be a tetchy and gung-ho bunch. I’m already looking forward to refashioning my notes for my next blog and to underlining those numbers, of course.

Time wasted? Not for me. I’ve kept the faith, gone back to base, revisited my past and found plenty to amuse, intrigue and even surprise me. When the die was cast all those years ago there was certainly an element of escapism in it for me. There was nothing troublesome about trains. They never caused upset or disappointment. I found solace, with or without my mates. Perhaps it is simply that old habits die hard and it just became engrained, eventually becoming something that I was pleased to be associated with and in the end even proud of. I’m glad I’ve got interests, even if others can’t get their heads round this one. It has also made me more tolerant and interested when it comes to anyone else with a less than mainstream pastime. Each to their own, life’s rich tapestry, etc.

So, where does the self-doubt come into it? Am I alone in this? I got it at work, too, before the end of my time there, and in a sporting context when I have been on the receiving end of a comprehensive drubbing and felt incapable of making a difference to the result. It is that sudden realisation that I may be wasting my time. Time is of the essence, after all. Time is ultimately what we have. Is it the Protestant work ethic thing giving me a guilt trip? Is it a legacy issue? “Mike Priestley. Trainspotter. He saw all his Britannias but fell short with his Class 47 diesels” may not cut it, but in the absence of a guiding force in any particular direction, I guess it’s just a matter of keeping on keeping on, as Alan Bennett so appropriately put it.