Give Us a Clue

It’s about half past nine on Friday morning and I’m walking through the centre of Lincoln on my way to a dealership on the edge of the town.

The cathedral dominates the skyline here, not just through its size, but through the size of the hill it sits on as well.

On the grassy slopes at the bottom of this hill I can see a statue, which from a distance looks like a knight in armour swinging some kind of large, unwieldy implement, which presumably has some religious significance. But when I get closer I can see that it is neither within the cathedral grounds nor (probably) a knight. More than anything it now seems to resemble a man attacking a speed camera.

It stands outside the Usher Art Gallery, which does not open until ten o’clock, although the gates leading from the road up to the main building are open.  There seems to be a small plaque at the statue’s base and so I walk over to see if my guess is anywhere close. But it is just a blank metal surface. Maybe I’m being encouraged to think for myself, which seems rather annoying at this time in the morning.

The statue is clearly making some point about something, but if visitors are expected to not only work out if they agree with it, but also what it might be in the first place then there ought to at least be a coffee machine next to it.

Secret Places

It’s Monday morning and I’m on my way to Whitchurch (the one in Shropshire) to collect a vehicle from an auction. I’m currently at Crewe station, nearing the end of an hour long wait for the Shrewsbury train, which stops at Whitchurch. The platform only has one bench, which already has a person sat on each end of it, and so I’m crouched down on my heels nearby, looking idly around.

The platform opposite is about four feet above the level of the tracks, with the vertical side of it being made up of old brickwork, mostly black with dirt, but crumbling away in places to reveal unblemished red beneath. Exactly opposite me there is a gap in this brickwork, filled by a couple of lengths of timber, about six feet across. But between these lengths is another small gap through which can be glimpsed a lit subway running beneath the platforms. Nothing too unusual about this except that pedestrian access to all the platforms here is via footbridges. Presumably there is still some routine explanation – maybe the elevators go down while the stairs go up, or maybe it is some kind of service access for the staff. But I find myself wanting to think that there is some other more secretive, maybe even magical explanation for it.

I spent the last week on holiday near Chichester, during which time we took the kids to see the new Harry Potter film. I’d never seen any of the films before, or read any of the books, and I think maybe this first exposure has left an impression on me.

I catch the train to Whitchurch and then have a couple of miles to walk out to the auction, on the A41 south of the town. I’m only about half a mile away when it begins to rain so hard that I have to take shelter under a tree. In front of me the traffic on the dual carriageway ploughs through the surface water in a perpetual cloud of spray. Behind me is a tangled hedge and a dense patch of old trees, and behind that only fields. But peering through the trees I can see below me, at the bottom of a steep cutting, a dirt track which disappears into a tunnel under the main road. Undoubtedly this is just an access road and the only thing I’m likely to see on it is a tractor containing a ruddy-faced farmer with a flat cap on his head. But again there is the desire to believe that if I keep watching for long enough then something stranger than that will come along, out of sight of the drivers in the vehicles roaring past, and not expecting to be seen by anyone at all. I blame J K Rowling.

Unapproachable at Last?

It’s just after midday and I’m walking through Bristol, along the Bath Road, towards an area called Brislington, where I’m due to collect a car from a residential address.

Away to the left, on my side of the road, the river Avon flows between overgrown banks and amongst odds and ends of old industry. On the other side is a row of large terraced houses whose front doors open straight onto the pavement. A young woman stands on that side, watching the traffic and waiting for a chance to cross. She gives the impression of being in something of a hurry, although there is nothing much over here. She is thin, almost gaunt, and has long, light brown wavy hair, tied back. She wears a tight-fitting black top, and black trousers. But my attention is mainly drawn to the fact that she is barefoot.

A gap comes in the traffic and she begins to cross over, seeming to be heading for the only other person on this side of the road, a young, casually dressed guy with a small rucksack slung over his shoulder. But he seems unaware of her intentions, and also uses the gap to cross over. She immediately doubles back, and when she reaches him she stands directly in his path and begins talking. I can’t hear what she is saying, but there seems to be a degree of intensity in the words, augmented with expressive hand gestures.

I don’t think he knows her, and so I guess that there is some story being told which involves the need for any spare change he might have about him.

I keep walking and they are behind me before she has finished her pitch, so I’ve no idea what his response was. I turn around after a few seconds but he is already on his way, and she has her back to me.

When she first set out to intercept him, and he crossed over the road, it would have been easier for her to just keep coming and try her luck with me instead, but she didn’t give me a second glance. I wonder why she was so sure that he was the more promising target?

When I was younger, in my twenties and even thirties, I was a magnet for anyone with a sorry tale to tell, or a collecting tin to fill, or a petition to be signed. Even in crowded city centres they seemed to home in on me regardless of whether I avoided eye contact or tried to look defiantly straight at them.

Maybe once you get past a certain age you stop seeming approachable and malleable, and slip into some other category instead – middle-aged and cynical perhaps? Maybe my days of being given the hard sell by strangers in the street are over. I don’t think I’ll miss them.

Not So Old Men

It’s nearly nine in the morning and I’m driving through Gorton, a not particularly affluent part of Manchester, heading for the car auctions in Belle Vue.

It’s been raining torrentially most of the way up from Birmingham, as if to disillusion anyone who had started to think we might be in for anything other than a British summer this year.

The rain has slowed to a shower now, but the sky remains full of rolling clouds of the darkest grey.

I’m stopped at a set of lights when a skinny old white guy, in his sixties at least, comes trotting past on the pavement. He wears a dark woollen hat, white trainers, and a thin green rain mack which reaches almost down to his knees and below which the bottoms of grey shorts are just visible.

My first thought is that he is running for something – maybe a bus, or to catch someone up. But he has a steady pace and isn’t looking at anything in particular so I guess he is just jogging. He has a determined expression on his face – even at his age he still has some purpose in mind for which he wants to keep himself fit.

Half a mile further along I pass another old guy, waiting on the other side of the road for the lights to change at a pedestrian crossing. He rests his weight on one leg almost as if he is about to start tapping his foot on the ground, and has his head tilted slightly to one side with a look of exagerrated impatience on his face – the kind one would normally expect to find on a teenager’s face if someone his age had impeded their progress for any reason.

Maybe places like Gorton stop people drifting into either contentment or resignation as they get older – there are too many everyday challenges to be faced down. Or maybe it’s just the rain.

In Defence of Milton Keynes

It’s an unpleasantly hot Wednesday morning and I’m walking through Milton Keynes on my way to collect a vehicle from an industrial estate in Tilbrook, on the edge of the city. I’m following a path that has been running parrallel to the road leading to the estate, but is now diverging from it in the right direction to hopefully cut a corner off the journey.

Most of the main roads here have no pavements but instead have footpaths set back from them, usually hidden from the motorist’s view behind tall hedges or in cuttings.

Milton Keynes often gets a bad press on account of it having all been built in the same modern style, with the main roads running in a utilitarian grid pattern. It’s true that there are not many places that seem more devoid of character when viewed from a car window, but on foot it is a different story. You are constantly finding short cuts and coming across spacious, well maintained parks, often with small lakes and interesting statues. Every city has its green and pleasant spots but in Milton Keynes they seem to be casually scattered from one end to the other.

The only niggle I have with this pedestrian network is that the paths, unlike the roads, are rarely as straight as they could be and will often embark upon long unnecessary curves in order to reach the entrances to subways, or to get around the kinds of obstacles that the Romans would have ploughed through without a second thought – small clumps of trees and shrubs, or grassy mounds not big enough to be called hills.

In Notes From a Small Island, Bill Bryson gives this description of the city’s footpaths -

‘they followed circuitous, seemingly purposeless routes that must have looked pleasing on paper, but gave no consideration to the idea that people, faced with a long walk between houses and shops, would mostly like to get there in a reasonably direct way.’

But given the effort that has gone into the green spaces here, I like to think that rather than a lack of consideration there was a degree of optimism in these Post-war designs – the expectation of a future where peoples’ lives would be lived at a relaxed pace, enabling them to stroll happily to their destinations, appreciating the route as they went.

How could those planners have known that today we would be working the longest hours in Europe, and that our poor employers would be having to deal with a level of stress amongst their workers which now apparently results in more lost working days than even the strikes of the Seventies?

How could they have known that one day reasonable people (like me) would look at the graceful curves of their footpaths and see only an unnecessary ten seconds being added on to their day?

Customer Not Present

It’s Friday morning and I’m collecting a vehicle from a private address on a council estate in Bromsgrove. The vehicle in question is a Ford Focus belonging to Motability, which means that the person who has been leasing it is in some way disabled.

These jobs are quite rare and I always approach them with some trepidation as we are never given any details about why the vehicle is being collected, and are forbidden to phone the customer beforehand. It may be that the driver has passed away or become too ill to use the vehicle, but equally it may have been decided that they no longer qualify for the Motability allowance for some reason, which they may not be particularly happy about.

I have heard of platers being met by angry customers, or their relatives. I’ve also heard of platers arriving at a collection address to find a hearse parked outside.

I knock on the door and a few seconds later it is answered by a middle aged woman, who at first glance does not appear to be either grieving or spoiling for a fight. I explain who I am and she takes me through the house to the back of the property, where the car is parked up. The house looks clean and cosy, although she apologises for the mess, on the grounds that there are some piles of washing here and there.

She gives me the keys and then offers to make me a drink.

‘No thanks, I’ve had one just recently,’ I tell her, although the truth is that I want to be on my way as soon as the inspection is done. If the situation becomes awkward for any reason I don’t want to be hanging around blowing on a cup of scalding coffee and trying to think of something to say.

‘We weren’t really sure what to do with it,’ she says, ‘It’s not my car it’s my son’s, but he’s in prison.’

She sounds neither defensive about this nor traumatized by it, and I wonder if it is not the first time her son has found himself ‘inside’. She tells me about the difficulties she has had in trying to find out what to do with the vehicle – ‘because of where he is we can’t just phone him up and ask him anything about it.’

She has found Motability hard to deal with and had even tried to take the car back to the local dealership where it had originally come from, but they had refused to have it or even allow it to be stored there – ‘I feel like I’m just banging my head against a brick wall.’

I tell her some of my own experiences of Motability’s labyrinthine and demoralizing customer services, and soon find myself nattering away to her in a way that is quite rare for me. I can’t imagine her being judgemental or taking anything I say the wrong way.

I eventually venture to ask –

‘How does he get on being disabled in prison? Does he have to stay in a special… ward.’

I know that ‘ward’ is the wrong word, but I can’t think of the right one.

‘No, they’ve got all of the facilities there. He’s not that disabled that he can’t get about.’

I was hoping she might go on to tell me what he did and how long he got, but she doesn’t.

I soon finish the inspection, print out a receipt for her, and then say goodbye before setting off on the short drive to Castle Bromwich auctions.

There seemed to be something deeply likeable about her which makes me hope she was justified in her quiet but obvious support for her son, and that whatever he did there is no victim somewhere who might be entitled to think otherwise.

Keep Music Live

It’s ten o’clock on Thursday morning and I’m sitting in Westminster tube station waiting for a District Line train out to Parsons Green.

A Circle Line service pulls in and as the doors open I can hear, amongst the usual background noises, something that sounds like the last dying ripple of a round of applause, although it may just be some mechanical sound from the train, or even heels clopping along the platform.

The carriage in front of me is full enough for one or two people to be standing up, and one or two of these more visible passengers are clearly looking at something interesting further along.

I follow their gazes and locate a young guy in a t-shirt and jeans standing near the front set of doors. He is not now saying or doing anything, but in his hand he holds an instrument, half-hidden behind him from where I’m sitting, but I think it is a fiddle. Or maybe a violin. I can also hear someone talking loudly near him, as if addressing an audience.

Amongst the passengers looking on are a middle aged, smartly-suited guy with a smile on his face and, further back, a young Oriental girl with an even broader grin. These are not private, reserved smiles, and it seems almost as if these strangers might be about to begin spontaneous conversations with the people around them about whatever they have just seen.

Some of the local train services around Birmingham have on-board television screens which loudly inform anyone who can’t find a seat in the Quiet Zone about the latest news and showbiz gossip. But even when people are paying attention to the screens there is never any sense of them being drawn any closer together by the fact that they are all looking at the same thing.

What is it about a live performance that brings people so quickly out of their shells even when they are not expected to participate other than to applaud at the end?

But I’m still trying to work out exactly what is going on when the carriage doors slide shut again and off they all go, leaving only individual individuals behind them on the platform.

Fare’s Fair?

It’s nearly half past nine on Friday morning and I’ve just arrived on foot at Wolverhampton station, and need to get a train to Shrewsbury. There is one due to leave in two minutes. In fact it’s already on the platform. There are at least a dozen people in the queue for the ticket counters, but no-one using either of the automatic ticket machines.

I approach one of these, plough through the options screens, put my debit card in, and then read the message on the screen telling me that there is a ‘card error’ and that I need to remove my card and then put it back in again. I do this and receive the same message again. Undaunted I pull a second card out of my wallet and put that in instead. Unable to blame the card anymore, the machine simply declares that it is unable to process my transaction at the moment, and that is that.

The queue to reach a human being has not grown any shorter. The ticket counters are behind a partition. There are about five in total, although the most I can ever remember seeing open at any one time is two.

There are no ticket barriers to reach the platforms, so I hurry through to the train. I still have nearly a minute to spare and there are a couple of staff hanging around on the platform so I ask them if I can buy a ticket on board. They tell me I can’t, but that it should be ok to pay at the barrier in Shrewsbury.

I get on board, and then begin ruminating on what might happen at Shrewsbury. Maybe the staff there won’t believe me, and will try to fine me. Or maybe the barriers will be unmanned and open, and I will walk out of the station and into the morning sunlight seven pounds and twenty pence better off than I was expecting to be.

But both off these outcomes are pre-empted by an inspector getting on board at Billbrook. He doesn’t ask why I don’t have a ticket, but then tries to charge me nine pounds for one.

‘Is that the cheapest price? I tried to buy one from the machine at the station but it wouldn’t take my card. It was only supposed to be about seven quid.’

In a flat, heard-it-all-before tone of voice he tells me that this is the price on the train, and that there are also staff at Wolverhampton station. I tell him about the queue, even lengthening it for good measure – ‘they were queuing out of the door.’

He mutters that they need to get their act together, but that it is nothing to do with him. I pay the nine pounds and he gives me the ticket and then moves on down the carriage.

I begin idly drafting a complaint and get as far as – ‘why should I be penalised because the station I arrived at did not have adequate facilities for me to buy a ticket?’

But it seems like too much trouble for a couple of quid, and maybe my case isn’t that strong anyway. I only tried one of the machines, and for all I know every single one of the ticket counters may have been open – after all, there’s a first time for everything.

Signs of the Times?

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m driving home into Birmingham. I’ve just come off the M42 and am stopped at the traffic lights on the junction. The car in front of me has a clearly visible BNP poster in the back window – ‘People like you voting BNP.’

I saw an identical one last week in the front window of a house in Shrewsbury. When I was younger I used to be active in an anti-fascist group, and so things like this grab my attention. Before these elections I had never seen this kind of open, everyday identification with the BNP anywhere.

The trouble for the Left these days is that Labour have not only discredited themselves, but have dragged down a lot of good ideas with them. By pursuing equality along such lines as race, gender, and sexuality while attempting to sweep the class divide under the carpet they have not only alienated a large part of their traditional constituency, but have created the impression in that constituency that equality is something that happens to other people at your expense.

I think there are a lot of white working class people who are wondering who exactly is on their side anymore (or even prepared to acknowledge their existence) and who are coming to the sorry conclusion that it is the BNP or no-one.

I look at the guy in the car in front, but all I can really see is the back of his head. Maybe a few years ago he would have been looking nervously around him whenever he had to stop in traffic, and maybe the residents of the house in Shrewsbury would have found themselves needing a glazier.

But perhaps this is the beginnings of a sea-change in the kind of politics that it is socially acceptable to support? How many Labour posters have you seen in peoples’ cars and houses this time round?

Strangers on a Train

It’s just after eight in the morning and I’m on a train from Walsall to Birmingham. The carriage is only about half full, which seems almost miraculous for this time of day, although the half-term holidays may have something to do with it.

I’ve got a window seat, and have my bag on the next seat and am busy doing paperwork. We pull into Tame Bridge Parkway and another handful of commuters get on board, one of whom wants to sit by me. I see out of the corner of my eye a figure appear and then hover by the seat that my bag is on, and then there is an almost inaudibly quiet enquiry about the seat’s availability.

I’m not saying that I’m a particularly miserable person at this time of the morning, but when I move my bag onto the floor I find myself making this look like more of an effort than it really is.

I now glance up and the vague figure becomes a young black woman in a reasonably smart, purple trouser suit.

Before sitting down she hesitates and then picks up the copy of the Metro still lying on the seat.

‘Is this your paper?’ she asks with the measured politeness of someone persevering with what they now think may have been a bad decision.

It is my paper and I haven’t read it yet, but I’m already starting to feel slightly guilty about my bag-moving performance and so I say -

‘Yeah, but you can read it if you want.’

She doesn’t want to and tucks it away behind the fold-up tray in the back of the seat in front of her.

After a few minutes she takes a small, plain book out of her bag and starts reading that instead. I can’t see what it is but when she turns the pages they make a quiet crackling sound that reminds me of the thin, shiny paper that bibles used to be printed on when I was a kid (and may still be printed on today for all I know.)

Maybe she’s reading one now, to give herself the inspiration to deal with life’s everyday adversities, like finding herself sitting next to a grumpy caffeine addict who wishes he had something to read as well.