Posted on 01/07/2009 at 08:54 by Chris Britcher - Kent on Saturday
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I spent many years commuting on our rail network. And somewhere in my brain lurks a department which can still reel off the full stopping service between my home station and the major London terminals.
What’s more, in that same compartment of my mind, there lurks a memory of most of the other routes through Kent. The list of stations seeped into my brain sub-consciously as I stood on platforms waiting for trains home.
There are still places in Kent I have never been to but know they exist purely by the fact they have a station on a main line. Places like Martin Mill, Dumpton Park and Westenhanger. They roll off the tongue and in my mind I have images of what they are probably like, a mystique I know would probably be shattered were I to ever set eyes on them.
Quite frankly, my brain isn’t sufficiently big enough to be carrying around that sort of useless information.
At first I despised the daily two-hour slog to London and then repeating the slow, busy, dirty process home again. Given it just involved me sitting on a cushioned seat, it was on initially cripplingly tiring. And mind-numbingly boring.
I resented every sweaty lump who sat next to me. I could happily have stabbed to death those who sprawled themselves over two seats and refused to budge when I or a fellow commuter came down the carriage in desperate need of a spot to park ourselves for the duration. Over the top, maybe. But after a bad day in the office, selfish seat nabbing is without question punishable by death.
But over the years, my hate relationship with these ‘lost’ four hours of my life would change. They say love and hate are emotions which exist within an unkempt whisker of one another, and so it proved.
In the mornings, I would get on board – nab my window seat (always looking in the direction I was travelling, naturally, I didn’t want to feel travel sick now, did I?) – plug in my CD player (this was the pre-iPod era) and look forward to an extra hour and a half’s sleep.
Sure it meant I’d wake up grunting somewhere outside Bromley, dribbling on to the shoulder of the poor sap next to me, or with my face squashed against the train window and my hair bent out of shape for the rest of the day, but at least I got a little shut eye.
On the way home, a bit of clever positioning and I could be in a good seat (opposite side to the sun – I didn’t want to be sweltering for the duration now, did I?). In would go the earphones (always on low, I might add, I was never one of those who thought it was ‘cool’ to let the rest of the carriage hit the tinny noise of my listening) and out would come a book.
I used the time to read classics I’d never read before. Books I had failed miserably at school to concentrate on properly. Now I dived in and wallowed in them. I probably read more during those journeys than I ever have before or since.
Suddenly, the hated two hours turned into a precious pair. This was my time. I’d turn my phone off and just enjoy good music, good literature or simply a view out of a window.
Granted, the trains were, up until the very last days of my commuting, always the old rubbish slam door trains. And on the rare occasion when I would mistime getting to the station and end up standing in the old post carriages, they were truly miserable hours. But if I’d got a seat, avoided anyone with children, and – surely the worse sin of all – people who actually wanted to chat the whole way home – then it could have been worse.
So what? I hear you cry. Well I say this because for those commuters happy to shell out a few bob, that time has now been dramatically reduced. Because this is a new era of super-fast high-speed trains. Of 140mph top speeds. Of 37-minute journeys from Ashford to London. And that’s really quite incredible.
And as good as it must be to shave such a gigantic slice of their travelling time off their average day, I would wager there will at least be a few like me who may rue that precious time. Because we all know what will happen. That extra time saved will be spent in the office and not at home. And a bit of valuable leisure time will be gone.
So don’t worry if you can’t afford to upgrade your ticket. Just remember that time is on your side.
Chris Britcher's columns appear each week in Kent on Saturday newspaper. Available from all good newsagents priced 90p or free online at www.kentnews.co.uk.
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