Newcastle. First-class lounge. The benefits of travelling
first-class. Free cappuchino coffee, comfortable leather armchair,
parquet floor, mural on one wall, arched window looking out over
platform 4, television on the far wall showing the news. A man cleans
the lounge with a vacuum cleaner. He knocks over a stool. There’s
only one other person here – a woman, seated at a table, staring
into an i-phone. Plump, sixty-ish, dyed blonde hair, fancy
spectacles, she looks a little like Mrs Slocombe. Daylight fades,
leaving a lovely roseate glow in the west. No-one checks to see
whether or not I’m entitled to sit here. My train is six minutes
late. It leaves from platform 4. I had time to spare before entering
the first-class lounge. I looked at some of the ancient buildings
surrounding the station, including the castle and keep. I gazed
through the window of the old parcels office where I started out my
working life with British Railways in 1966. They made me start work
at 6 a.m. so I soon gave that up. It’s no longer a parcels office,
it’s now a stationery emporium. It’s a fine city, but Grainger
Street looks a lot seedier these days. I wandered past the old water
tower atop the works building that the North-Eastern Railway built in
1891 to service the steam locomotives of that era. It now lies
derelict. I hope it’s listed, otherwise it will be torn down and
yuppie flats will be built on the site, as has happened all over the
city. Either that, or they’ll build yet more student accommodation.
In my day, the university/polytechnic didn’t take up much room, now
it seems to have devoured half the city.
This is more like
it! A near-empty carriage, a single window seat and a much more
comfortable seat position. Daylight has almost gone, and office
lights and street lights of the city burn brightly. There is
something enthralling about railway stations at night. The only staff
are cleaners and men who go round tapping the rails with a metal
stick. The passengers are so few you can hear their hollow footsteps
ranging along the platform. The station lights give off an eerie
glow and you are put in mind of Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson
standing on the dark platform of Carnforth Station saying their
painful goodbyes in Brief Encounter. We stop at Morpeth, the
first time I’ve ever stopped there on a main-line train. The sunset
is beautiful. This is the best train to catch to go home, as all the
passengers have long since decamped. The trouble is, they’ve shut
down the trolley service and I won’t get my complimentary coffee
and biscuits. I didn’t on the way down, either, because the
trolley person had called in sick. Two armrests and an antimacassar,
luxury indeed. We pass electricty pylons in silhouette, horses
standing placidly in a field, darkness enveloping every leaf, every
branch, every tree, every blade of grass. Forty minutes later, we see
the lights of Berwick-upon-Tweed twinkle gaily. Dunbar is but twenty
minutes away. I wander down the empty carriage and find an unopened
tiny pot of strawberry jam. iIt'll have to do, in lieu of coffee and biscuits. I put it in my bag. It’s disorientating, not being able to
see anything except the odd pin-prick of light from a far-away
cottage. We pass the grey shoebox that is Torness and the Martian
spaceship that is the Blue Circle factory, and we’re at Dunbar
station. It’s good to be away, but it’s so much better to be
home. Didn’t someone sing that?
