John Pearson recommends a bus ride.
After two recent sombre reflections, firstly on old age and then, though not necessarily connected, on death, let’s get out and about again. Let’s go by long distance bus.
A book I once bought, appropriately in an airport bookshop, was entitled The Only Way to Go, telling of the threat of death presented by air travel (sorry, more death). For me, long distance buses, specifically those operated by National Express, if not the only way to go, are a firm favourite. I have travelled thus, the Newcastle to London route and others, for forty years nearly … and not just to save money (though that too, on occasion), sometimes because I needed to be in London at six o’clock in the morning. Sometimes, if a day bus, for the view along the way.
Let’s join the varied crowd who will be our fellow passengers, either to London or to Newcastle.
Who are they nowadays? Much the same as ever. For some it is still a necessarily cheap way to travel, although for many students, once likely to half fill most buses, the new cheap alternative to the train is Megabus (the new ‘National Express’?). Today we are more likely to be traveling alongside members of families, often African or Indian, migrating to or from the Capital. Single persons also abound, of every shape and size. Some, quiet and smartly dressed, may be travelling to a business meeting (as I have myself). Others, louder, may be en route to or from their holidays, complete with bright Hawaiian shirts or ‘kiss me quick’ hats. Others, clearly less fortunate, quite plainly dressed, draw no attention to themselves at all, perhaps deliberately avoiding it. Who knows how many fleeing villains I have shared bus space with, as well as the vast majority of innocent folk who just have a pressing need to get cheaply from A to B?
How do they behave nowadays? Much the same as ever. Some, in small groups start out, at midnight, still finishing boisterous conversations they began before rolling out of a pub, heading for the bus station, and looking set to talk all night, even after ‘lights out’! Some, just minutes after their arrival, will have their special cushion out, perhaps a blanket too, real or improvised (their coat), and already be trying to sleep. Others, if leaving Newcastle, stare vacantly out at the dark, or if leaving London at the sleeping Regency streets around Victoria, at the wide avenues of St John’s Wood and then the suburbs beyond. Some try to read by the dull overhead lights or, nowadays, play computer games. After half an hour or so all perhaps will have ‘dropped off’ … until the Service Station.
Only the buses and, arguably, the service stations have moved with the times. A part of me still yearns for the daytime double-deckers of the late 1970’s, a crew member serving coffee and sandwiches as we sped along the M1. But the buses nowadays are still good, mostly brand new, reclining mock leather airline seats offering luxurious travel for a ticket costing a fraction of the train fare. The service stations have had a coat of paint or two since the late seventies when they and I first became acquainted.
Retail outlets and franchised coffee kiosks have changed name and style, but overall have remained much the same; lonely places for the single traveller, with no company except the other lonely guy, old or young, who has already bored you with his life story for the past three hours. At 3.00 in the morning only one coffee stall (‘bouncy’ barista, sleepy passengers) and the newsagents will be open, and it takes imagination to visualise the crowds at the fast food joints during the day, cold and shuttered as they are now. On a bad trip, running late, the driver gives you 15 minutes … no time at all. On a fast run he allows you perhaps 50 minutes … loo and a coffee, bliss!
Well there it is. Make of it as you will … six hours or so of contented travel with a refreshing break half way, or six hours of living hell. For some of us it’s still the only way to go.
Dr John Pearson is a semi-retired lecturer at the University of Northumbria and the current chair of SOF Network.