Antimacassar notwithstanding

First class. Now what’s that all about? So, you get an antimacassar, that oblong piece of cloth on which to rest your head, but whether this is to protect the seat or your head, I’m not sure. And perhaps you’re just a little more likely to wind up next to someone more genteel than your (already fairly genteel) average commuter.

Far more interesting, though, are the gradations in the hierarchy of seating in standard class. To the casual traveller, this is of no concern, but I’m in it for the long haul, and so I’ve come to know every nuance of every kind of seat – a useable table; an armrest or not; full as opposed to obstructed view; a modicum, or less, of back support; aisle width (and its knock-on effects); and of course leg-room. All of which have alerted me to sensitivities I never knew I had.

But then there’s the human element to consider, and, sadly, it’s impossible to contain an environment that is assaulted – and then mutates – with every stop. But just sometimes I get it absolutely right: my neighbours are as discreet (and as discrete) in their management of personal space as I am; my back is perfectly aligned with my seat; my surroundings remain as peaceful at East Croydon as they were in Lewes. Then I wonder whether this is perhaps what first class is all about, lack of antimacassar notwithstanding.

The likes of me

So, as I was saying last week, there’s something about looking into other people’s lives from the shelter of the train that makes it neither intrusive nor untoward. You’re on the ultimate back road, cutting a swathe through homes, gardens and factories, but you didn’t ask to come this way. You just happen to be passing by, and, in any case, you’re almost invisible behind those slightly tinted windows.

And, as it happens, all those gardens streaking by give me the glimpses I need – a fix, in other words – of something I’d rather like for myself: a bigger garden. A small, boxy thing is the price we seem to pay in Lewes for surrounding ourselves by all those expansive, chalky hills, and so I’m in the fortunate position of having found something to aspire to each time I slice through Wivelsfield, Haywards Heath or even Clapham.

In short, all this is nothing like staring into someone’s front room. It’s mostly about marvelling at those gardens and the things people fill them with, enjoying the unsanctioned view of the back of a house rather than its more proper front, and sampling the messy edges of a hundred workshops and factories. So it’s spying for the fainthearted and the likes of me.

Vantage point

By now, four commuting years down the line, I know most of the nooks, crannies and railway escarpments between here and London. But occasionally I’ll look up and see something I’ve never seen before. How very heartening to realise that I don’t spend all my time looking out of the window and, equally, that I haven’t yet exhausted the visual possibilities of my commute.

But sometimes I see a house – or a piece of a house – so new, and so gleaming, that I realise it’s not just new to me, but truly new. One minute there’s a tight little space nestling between a factory and the railway line, and the next minute the builders have moved in. And then when I next happen to look up at that particular spot, on that particular side of the train, the foundations have been laid and the bricklaying has begun. And then, suddenly, there it is – a whole new house.

It’s good when signs of life start appearing: blurry bottles up close to the bathroom window, bits and bobs spilling out of the back door, a trampoline in the garden. But this is a subject for a different day: the low-grade, undercover observation of a world that has its back to you and for which the train provides the perfect vantage point…