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.
