Pass muster

Tomorrow I’m off to Scotland by train. There’s little to liken such a journey to my usual ups and downs from Lewes to London and back. But of course for the Lewes to London leg of this self-indulgent (as opposed to work-related) journey, I don’t need a ticket, and this fact is a source of unlikely, unexpected pleasure. My season ticket – such a sensible, necessary purchase – covers the cost as if it’s doing me a favour. And it makes me feel so much better value than my non-season-ticket-holding husband.

But there are other satisfactions to be gained from being the holder of such a thing. My particular trajectory through the ins and outs of railway property means that most of the time it sits idle in my bag, but if a conductor comes along it’s good – even gratifying – to be ready and waiting to be proved innocent

I wonder, then, if as a law-abiding citizen (the default setting for most of us, I presume) it’s one of the few occasions in fully fledged adult life when our obedience gets a chance to rear its bowed head. We get to prove we’re doing the right thing; and for once we’re not just quietly not causing trouble.

Passport control is, perhaps, an even better moment for us obedient types. There they look you up and down properly – a reminder that my season ticket photo is, I feel, worth rather more attention than it’s getting. And what about those two perfectly matched numbers on the two complementary parts of my ticket? Shouldn’t they be congratulated for their correctness on a more regular basis?

Still, at a time of life when the reward-fuelled experience of childhood is unlikely to come our way again, these meetings with conductors are junctures to be grasped. The approaching footfall and thank-you-thank-you rustle of the conductor as he passes down the train is our chance – one of our very few – to pass muster.

Two's grace

Most days, my commuting moments pile up one upon the other, each moment coming to rest neatly upon its predecessor – which is just how it should be. I’m not looking for excitement or stimulation in this part of my life.

But yesterday my moments broke the mould. I was coming to London Bridge from a – for me – unusual direction. And it dawned on me that there was no way I was going to catch my train. My comfort zone these days has expanded to the point where I can cut it fine and enjoy the challenge, but this was knife-edge fine, and I was in another zone completely. And so I relaxed: far better to miss the train by five solid minutes than actually see it pulling out.

But then – just when I didn’t require it – the must-catch-that-train instinct clicked in. And back came the adrenaline rush. I legged it through the convolutions of the London Bridge tube/train interchange, seamlessly inserted my season ticket into the slot and out again, got my body through the barrier and arrived at the train doors... And, yes, I did get on that train, slithering through the closing doors in a way that I wouldn’t repeat, wouldn’t recommend and haven’t relived – until now.

I basked in the glow of having made it. But it wasn’t just the pleasure of having caught the train that did it for me, but also the pleasure of not having to live through the dark despair of being left on the platform. There would have been a despondent, frustrated me to contend with – and thoughts of just how good life would have been if only I’d been on that train (as indeed it was for the real me already on its way to Lewes), of how all life’s problems would have melted away (as indeed they had, for now at least). And no doubt I would have cursed the punctuality of the service. Oh for a train that you could rely on to give you the courtesy of a minute or two’s grace.

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…

Some might say

There’s nothing quite like being the proud owner of a well-rehearsed journey to make travel at other times and to other places seem slow and cumbersome. Let me explain. I know at exactly which minute past the hour I need to leave my house in order to execute a carefully choreographed arrival at the station (through the gates with season ticket at the ready, into the Runaway and out again with cup of tea) before slipping in through the train doors. But give me the task of getting to London at a more godly hour on a weekend, and I’ll feel the need to allow a good fifteen minutes to spare (and use some of that dithering about which route to take to the station).

To subvert an analogy, if I may: in my commuting persona, I’m a fish in water. I’m humanity at its slickest. And I expect humanity around me to aim for, and reach, those same high levels of efficiency. Novice travellers – or even worse, tourists – are quite simply undesirable.

So I admit that in my own small, inconsequential way – and in a controlled environment where I can cause no harm – I may have exhibited something approaching an arrogance you wouldn’t expect from me. But put me back in my natural, non-commuting habitat and I’m the kind of human you’d much rather know – unfocused, ungainly, and as much of a novice as the next person. Like a fish out of water, some might say.

Definitely forgiven

I like to think that the air in Lewes is in a different league to that of London. Admittedly, at the point of comparison my judgement has no doubt been tainted by prolonged and close proximity to my fellow passengers, and London is nothing more than a distant memory, but – still – there’s something cleansing about taking that first breath as I hit solid ground. Never mind that I’m alighting at a busy station, negotiating the four-wheel drives in what must be one of the largest car parks in town, and that I’m about to stand my ground on the unforgiving pavements of Station Street – I insist on giving Lewes the benefit of the doubt.

For what air hasn’t been improved by its backdrop? With the first sights of Lewes before me (Harvey’s Depot still proudly supporting its name if not its purpose, the elegant yet unshowy backs of Friars Walk, the chalk cliffs bringing to mind the sea), the whole thing is bound to feel good.

And this is a good time of year to be reflecting on such things. I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t been glad to see the back of GMT and the arrival of ‘plus one’, but there can’t be many better placed advocates than we Lewes commuters. At a stroke, the charms of Lewes become even more acute.

So the pleasure is all ours as we alight from the train. And who wouldn’t rather step down from the train and into a crevice of the Downs than into Croydon? The earlier starts, the longer journeys, the later finishes than our suburban counterparts – there are so many things that at times seem to sit so heavily on our shoulders. But, right now, with a couple of lungfuls of our native oxygen inside me, all is most definitely forgiven.

Cushy number

There’s something about the word ‘commute’ that induces immediate feelings of pity in the listener. In fact, hardly will I have uttered the words ‘Lewes’ and ‘London’ in the same sentence than my companion will be imagining me crushed up against a thousand others and demanding to know my vital door-to-door statistics. I’m pleased to say that my one-hour-and-forty-minute average is just enough to elicit a respectable dose of sympathy.

But let me stand up, at this point, for Southern. For it’s rare that I’m left standing. And, unseemly as it may be, I’m often in possession of a double seat right up until the hordes come on board at Haywards Heath, allowing me all the elbow room I need to eat my toast and drink my tea in peace.

As a way of spending an hour or so first thing, then, surely this isn’t quite so pitiable after all. I have a comfortable seat, more leg room than if I were flying economy (a good comparison to keep in mind), and, if my fellow commuters have any sense of decency, silence. Compare that to getting a small boy fed, watered, dressed and out the door – the task that falls to my non-commuting husband – and those over-eager sympathisers might begin to see why I’m the one with the cushy number.