June 8

Off the rails

This country seems to be falling apart. So many failings, few successes. much frustration leading to angry action.

The latest is the threat of a national train strike with London likely to be hardest hit in an ongoing tube stoppage.

It set me reflecting on the days when travelling by train was apleasure. 

Most of my rail journeys were for work, including one memorable  trip when  Rosemary and I took a group of  Caerphilly schoolchildren to Ludwigsburg ; there was panic when one boy opened the door at midnight.

Most exciting were trips on the Japanese 125 mph ‘bullet train’ enjoying sushi snacks, and the most embarrassing, being transferred from the military hospital in Aldershot to Chepstow when I was deposited on the floor of Reading station waiting room, cap and large rug I had knitted on my chest, and being lifted into the train through a window.

Regular working trips to London were among my happiest mainly Forrest breakfasts and three-course dinners with wine on office expenses.

My last visit to London was to a an Institute of Public Relations lunch on the House of  Commons terrace when Robert was awarded his Fellowship, forty years after I had received mine.

My longest journey? Two days with Rosemary, from Northern Australia to Perth, the most boring ever, with nothing to see, almost endless open stretches, including the longest straight stretch in the world.

My big regret is that I never achieved my ambition take the three day Canadian Pacific across Canada which Bert, my brother, had done when he was in the RAF.