Travellers Tales

Travellers Tales

The extraordinary thing is that so little happens. You put people
through the most terrible circumstances and they do - nothing. After a
while they don't even moan.

A new word has entered the vocabulary of the South East commuter. It's
a verb. To connex. If you've been connexed then you know all about it.
You've been abused, you've been manipulated, you've been robbed and
your life is slowly descending into hell. And you feel helpless, so you
do nothing.

The trains in much of Britain have been well and truly screwed up for
weeks. Journey times have increased to the extent that one longs for
the days when coach and horses would transport you around the country.
In many cases they'd be quicker than their replacements.

It is my misfortune throughout this traumatic period to be well and
truly connexed on a daily basis. Trains run through from flooded Lewes,
they go on time along the 'nightmare line' to Uckfield but to and from
Brighton they scarcely seem to run at all. For two weeks a 'landslip in
the Hassocks area' closed the line entirely between Brighton and
Haywards Heath. Once re-opened eager eyes shone out from carriage
windows to witness this geological phenomenon that had put so many of
us through such appalling agony - but sign of it there was none.

We'd gone via Lewes, we'd gone via Horsham and up the Adur Valley line.
We'd driven to Gatwick, parked in the long term car park and caught the
Gatwick Express. We stood on platforms so crowded in the wind and the
rain and flinched as the train pulled in. We stood in packed carriages
for hours on end. It took us four hours and more to get home and then
we got up extra early the next morning to account for the time we knew
would be lost on the way back in. We stayed in London for nights on
end. We lost touch with our families, we were exhausted and irritable
when we saw them, we slept all weekend (when we weren't catching up on
the hours lost from work) - and we did nothing.

We know each other. We catch an eye from time to time and we see the
dead response. We are the walking dead, the zombies from beyond the
grave. We are connexed, railtracked and thameslinked. We are lambs to
the slaughter, sheep for the wolves, lemmings, clots and fools. We are
utterly, utterly British.