Handle With Care

Alfie really fancied Emma, and he was quietly confident that she felt the same way about him. Their kissing and fumbling had become quite intense of late, and Alfie felt sure that it was time for him to make the next move. He had no reason to doubt that she would respond in a mutually satisfactory way when he did so.

With Christmas approaching, this seemed to be the ideal time to act. A visit to Ann Summers produced a suitably lascivious gift of sexy lingerie, which he intended to suggest that Emma wore when she came to his flat the night after Christmas.

To seal the deal, he wrote her a long letter full of details of the naughty games that he hoped they would play when she succumbed to his wicked plan. He had quite a vivid imagination when it came to such matters, and his letter could leave Emma in no doubt as to what she could expect.

Early on Christmas morning, Alfie slipped round to Emma’s house with the present in his arms. He left it on the doorstep rather than knocking on her door, which he thought would add to the element of surprise. He simply labelled the gift “To Emma, the Most Gorgeous Woman in the World”. The X-rated letter, tucked inside the parcel, had ended with “call me on this number when you’ve read this.” He just had to go home, sit back and wait.

Alfie’s Christmas looked like being a lonely one this year, after his wife had left him in February. He therefore fervently hoped that Emma would call him sooner rather than later. It would be great if they could spend as much time together as possible today. Perhaps she would arrive soon after she had had her Christmas dinner and would then stay over? He therefore had an agonizing wait for his phone to ring.

But nothing happened. His phone stayed silent all day, apart from one annoying call from what sounded like a much older woman than Emma who said that she needed to make a delivery to him and wanted to check his address. It amazed him that some of these companies kept going even on Christmas Day.

But the call he really wanted just didn’t happen. Maybe he was wrong? Perhaps Emma didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her? Were the sexy undies over the top? Could his raunchy letter have turned her off rather than on? There was only one way to find out. He had to phone her.

Her tone of voice when she answered was far from encouraging. “I’ve blown it”, he thought. “I went too far this time”.

But that was not the problem at all, as it soon became clear.

“Not even a card”, Emma said. “I thought you might remember me on Christmas Day of all days.”

He was flabbergasted. So she can’t have opened his present. Could it possibly still be sitting on her doorstep? But there was clearly more to Emma’s negative thoughts that just his apparent neglect of her.

“I’m really worried about Granny”, she said.

“Granny?”

“Yes. She stays with us for a few days at Christmas every year, but this time she’s been behaving very oddly. She’s 85 and I’m afraid that she’s starting to go a bit doolally.”

“How come?” Alfie asked.

“Well, she went downstairs this morning to let the cat in, and she’s not been the same person since. She rushed straight back to her room, and when she came down for breakfast there was a very strange glint in her eye.”

“How do you mean, strange?”

“It’s hard to say. I thought I knew Granny pretty well. We’ve always been close – I was called Emma after her, by the way – and that expression on her face … Do you know, it was almost like I think I must look after I’ve been alone with you sometimes.”

“How is she now?”

“I don’t know. You see, she’s disappeared. I don’t know where she is. I heard her using the phone earlier on – I couldn’t catch what she was saying – then about half an hour ago she said she had to go to her room to change all her clothes, and now she’s gone out. What am I going to do?”

“I’m, sorry, Emma,” said Alfie. “I’m going to have to call you back. There’s somebody at the door.”

© John Welford

A Racing Uncertainty

To say that he woke with a start would not be strictly accurate, mainly because he was quite certain that he was not awake at all. There was, however, a start involved – in particular a starting pistol that went off with a loud bang and started the runners in a huge race.

The race in question was the 2019 London Marathon, and Joe appeared to be one of the
competitors.

But how was that possible? As far as Joe was concerned, he was asleep in bed a long way from London.

Also, he had no memory of ever having entered the London Marathon, let alone bought a pair of running shoes or a singlet and pair of shorts.

Come to that, he did not have the slightest interest in running. He had never been any sort of athlete – always last in running races at school and in later life he could rarely be bothered even to run for a bus. There could only be one explanation. He was having a dream.

As dreams go, this was a pretty realistic one. He was surrounded by hundreds of other runners and he seemed to be keeping up with them quite well. For somebody who had never done a day’s training for road running, this was not proving to be too difficult, although he could certainly feel every step as his feet hit the ground with a solid thump.

Ah, but this was a dream, wasn’t it? That meant he should be able to run really quickly, or maybe even fly. I’ll try flying, he thought, and waved his arms in the air. He failed to get airborne and prompted a cry from a close neighbour of “Mind what you’re doing, Mate, you nearly had my eye out there.”

This won’t really be London of course, he thought to himself. Round the next corner he was going to see the Pyramids, or the Statue of Liberty. But what he saw was another long street stretching into the distance, filled with thousands of runners just like himself.

But they won’t all be like me, will they? he pondered. Some of them will be dressed as camels or post boxes, and some of them will be joined together as Chinese dragons. But this is a dream, so if I see a unicorn it’ll be a real unicorn, not some pair of idiots wearing a unicorn costume.

But no, every fun runner in a costume was exactly that – an idiot making life extra difficult for him or herself by wearing some ridiculous outfit to get themselves seen on TV.

Relief at last. He had seen something that absolutely confirmed that he was in a dream. There, a few yards ahead, was the Pope at the side of the road being interviewed by Clare Balding. The real Pope would never take part in the London Marathon, and there could surely be no doubt that this was the real Pope. He was the right height and build, and he looked just like all the photos Joe had ever seen of Pope Francis. He would know for certain when he ran past.

But were the backs of Pope Francis’s hands really covered in tattoos? And would he really be carrying a banner that read “Epping Forest Hell’s Angels”? It seemed improbable, to say the least.

He could not remember having dreams that lasted quite so long, especially ones that did not go decidedly weird at some point or other. But this one refused to deviate from what looked decidedly like reality. All the landmarks were in exactly the right places – Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, the Thames Embankment, Big Ben – and they all looked exactly as they should have done.

This dream was also exhausting. He felt as though he really had been running for more than 26 miles on a Sunday morning in London. Surely he should wake up soon?

And wake up he did. There he was, in his own bed, with everything exactly as it should be.

That was the most vivid dream he had ever had. It was so vivid that his feet felt sore and his leg muscles exhausted.

But what was this thing dangling round his neck that certainly had not been there last night? There was no doubt about it. It was a genuine 2019 London Marathon Finisher’s medal.

© John Welford

Seeing the Funny Side

Schoolfriends Jason and Marcus were deep in conversation.

“Are you sure about this?” Marcus asked.

“Course I am”, said Jason. “It’ll be a huge laugh.”

“But will he really see the funny side?” Marcus insisted. “This is your Dad we’re talking about. I’ve never been impressed by his sense of humour. I remember the time I was round your place when the TV was showing ‘The Greatest Comedy Moments in TV History’ and he stayed stony-faced through every single one of them.”

“But he was laughing to himself inside”, said Jason.

“Really? So why, when Del Boy fell through the bar, was your Dad’s only comment that the Trotters should have sued the pub for breaching Health and Safety? And why did he insist that playing the notes in the wrong order was just the same as playing all the wrong notes?”

“I’m telling you”, said Jason, “Dad loves a joke as much as anyone, and practical jokes are right up his street. He’ll definitely see the funny side of this one.”

“OK”, said Marcus, “so what’s so funny about being robbed of your cash at the ATM outside Sainsbury’s – which is what you appear to have in mind?”

“Simple”, said Jason, “Dad’s being going on for months about how careful you need to be at cashpoints, and how he would never be caught out by a sneak thief who tried any sort of trick on him. Well – I reckon we could prove him wrong. It’s all right – we won’t keep the cash, obviously, but we’ll show him that he can be caught out as easily as anyone.”

“And he’ll take that as a joke?”

“Believe me”, said Jason. “I know my Dad. He’ll be the first to start laughing”.

So, the next day being Saturday, the two boys followed Jason’s Dad down into town on the latter’s regular morning walk to do a little shopping. Dad was one of those people who much prefer to use cash than plastic when buying things over the counter, so his first stop was the Sainsbury’s hole-in-the-wall cashpoint.

The boys had rehearsed their tactics very thoroughly, so when the notes emerged from the dispenser, Jason shouted loudly “Oh my God, look at that!” which made his Dad spin round, leaving Marcus free to grab the money and run off round the corner.

“You seem to be going somewhere in a hurry, young man”, said a deep voice.

The voice belonged to a police officer, into whom Marcus had cannoned just round the corner. Marcus had not reckoned on an outcome like this, and he could feel his legs going extremely wobbly as the policeman grabbed him by his shirt collar.

“And what’s that in your hand? Nice crisp ten-pound notes if I’m not mistaken. They wouldn’t by any chance have been stolen from some innocent old person using the cashpoint, would they? Let’s just see if we can find their real owner, shall we?”

So saying, the policeman dragged Marcus back round the corner, where Jason’s Dad was standing next to the cashpoint.

Two things now surprised Marcus to a considerable extent. The first was that Jason was also standing there. Why had he not scarpered as soon as he himself had run off? The second was that both Jason and his Dad were laughing their heads off.

“I told you Dad would see the funny side”, said Jason. “The point is – do you?”

Marcus didn’t know what to say, so said nothing.

Jason’s Dad turned to the “policeman”. “Thanks for playing your part so well, Brian”, he said. “It sounds as though you made an excellent officer of the law for our little prank. Now I suppose you’d better clear off before a real policeman turns up”.

© John Welford

Changing Trains: Truth and Fiction

Part 1: The True Bit

After a short break in Berlin my son and I returned by rail to our home in Leicestershire.

The first train took us from Berlin to Cologne. The journey was notable for keeping perfectly to time, arriving at exactly the right time in Cologne after a journey lasting more than four hours. We therefore had no problem with making the connection for the next leg of the trip, from Cologne to Brussels.

However, that was when things started to go awry. Shortly after starting out, the announcement was made that the train would make an additional stop at Düren, which is a town between Cologne and Aachen. A later announcement said that everyone would have to leave the train at Düren and get on a train that would be on the opposite platform. All seat reservations would still apply on the other train.

As our train arrived at Düren another train was approaching at the adjoining platform from the opposite direction. The two trains stopped at almost exactly the same time. We all duly got off our train – as did the passengers who had just arrived on the other train.

We then swapped trains. When everyone was on board, the two trains set off back the way they had come, carrying a fresh set of passengers.

There was no explanation given as to why this took place, and there seemed to be no reason why two trainloads of passengers, travelling between Germany and Belgium, should have to do what they did.

Odder still, from my point of view, was the fact that I just finished reading Christopher Isherwood’s novel “Goodbye to Berlin” and had started on his other “Berlin” novel. The title? “Mr Norris Changes Trains”!


Part 2: The Fictional Bit – One Assumes!

So, what possible explanation could there be? Here is a possible – albeit unlikely – scenario.

Fritz, a train driver working for Deutsche Bahn, had a problem. He lived with his wife in a small flat in Cologne, and regularly did the run between Cologne and Brussels, where he sometimes stayed overnight so that he could drive the early train back to Cologne. He was supposed to spend these nights at an approved hotel, but had recently got very friendly with a young lady, named Yvette, who had her own flat in Brussels. He had therefore got into the habit of staying overnight with her instead of at the hotel.

This arrangement had worked very well for around a month, with the girlfriend in Brussels knowing full well that Fritz had a wife in Cologne, but the wife in Cologne being in total ignorance of the girlfriend in Brussels. As long as this situation continued, the happiness of all three of them would be maintained.

But it could not last for ever.

Things went wrong when Yvette, unknown to Fritz, made her own visit to Cologne to see Louise, an old schoolfriend who had done very well for herself and now worked as a senior controller for Deutsche Bahn. Yvette wanted to tell Louise about her new boyfriend, and she did so at a café not far from both the Hauptbahnhof and the Cathedral.

“His name’s Fritz”, said Yvette, “He’s a lovely guy. Tall, blonde, very well-spoken. He works for your company as a train driver - you might actually know him.”

“We’ve got more than one driver named Fritz”, said Louise. “He could be one of several.”

“I forgot to mention”, said Yvette, “his eyes look a bit strange. His left eye is blue but his right eye is brown. I don’t think I’ve ever come across that before.”

“In that case”, said Louise, “I know exactly who you mean”.

And so did the woman sitting at the next table whose attention had been drawn to the conversation of the two friends the moment she overheard the name Fritz being mentioned. As soon as Yvette had got up from her table to go the Ladies, the woman went over to where Loiuse was sitting.

“The next time you see my husband Fritz”, said the woman, “You can tell him from me that if he ever comes near me again he’ll get a lot more than he bargained for. If he wants to live with that trollop in Brussels, he can do so, but I’ll be chucking all his belongings out into the street as soon as I get home”.

She then walked off, presumably to go home and start packing Fritz’s things.

Louise had no idea whether Yvette knew that Fritz was married or not. Yvette sounded so happy and it might well destroy her if she found out that her new boyfriend already had a wife in Cologne.

However, Louise was a resourceful person and she had a solution to the problem, which she could do given her professional capacity as an arranger of train movements. When Yvette came back, Louise excused herself in turn and made some urgent phone calls.

She arranged for the train that Fritz was due to be driving to Cologne that evening to reverse direction at Düren, which is where it was due to cross with the Brussels-bound train on which Yvette would be travelling.

When she phoned Fritz to tell him, he was shocked by the news that his marriage was now in tatters, but very grateful to Louise for sorting things out. The prospect of facing his irate wife when he got home was not one to savour, and Yvette’s flat in Brussels sounded like a much safer place to spend the night.

Louise also had to get the driver of the other train to agree to the plan, which he was perfectly willing to do, being one of Fritz’s best mates.

All the passengers would have to swap trains at Düren, meaning that Fritz and Yvette would head to Brussels together, with Yvette being none the wiser about what was really going on.

Louise’s next job would be to collect Fritz’s belongings and take them to her own flat in Cologne.

She had always fancied Fritz. Getting Yvette to sit at the table next to where Fritz’s wife always had coffee at this time had been the only really tricky part of the plan.

© John Welford

An Evening I Will Never Forget

Groucho Marx is reputed, almost certainly falsely, to once having said “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it”. I think I can echo that line many times over, but there were also evenings that – if not exactly perfectly wonderful – were at least memorable.

One that comes to mind was when I was a young librarian working at a college that has since turned into the University of Chichester. In my student days at Bangor I had been very active in its Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and was delighted when the equivalent group at Chichester allowed me – as a non-student – to join their ranks.

After chorus appearances in The Mikado and Iolanthe I was promoted in my third year there to a principal role when they performed HMS Pinafore. I duly appeared for three nights as First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Joseph Porter KGB. I managed to remember all my lines, including getting the verses in the right order in “When I was a lad” shortly after my arrival on stage in Act I.

In Act II one of my numbers was a trio with Captain Corcoran and his daughter Josephine, who is reluctant to accept my marriage proposal, mainly because she is in love with Ralph, one of the ship’s crew. However, my only explanation for her coldness towards me is that she is dazzled by my exalted rank.

I therefore offer the salve that “love levels all ranks” and that she should therefore not imagine that being a humble captain’s daughter means that she cannot enter high society as the wife of the head of the Admiralty.

Josephine does not dissent from this view. If social rank can be ignored when it comes to matters of love, then her devotion to a humble “tar who ploughs the water” is equally legitimate. Hence the famous trio in which everyone seems to be in full agreement despite arguing in opposite directions.

The director of our production had the bright idea of illustrating the tangled web by having the three of us swinging about on ropes at various stages of the trio and getting our wires crossed almost literally. He apparently imagined that it would not look out of place for three vertical ropes to suddenly appear on the deck of a 19^th-century Naval vessel, presumably as pieces of rigging that had come loose for no obvious reason.

We were all young and foolish, and we reckoned that if it got a laugh, why not?

I was not quite as young as my colleagues, but equally foolish, so I suggested an extra piece of “business”. I thought it would be a good joke for Sir Joseph to swing right off into the wings at the end of the song, giving a loud despairing cry that would be followed the sound effect of a huge splash. He – by which I mean I – would then stagger back on stage soaking wet.

So that is what we did.

On the first of our three evening performances the stagehand in the wings scooped a tumblerful of water out of a fire bucket and threw it in my face. It got a reasonable laugh, but I doubted whether anyone more than three rows back would have seen any wetness on me at all. I therefore asked the stagehand to throw more water at me at the second show.

This is what he did. Instead of a glassful of water I got a jugful. This was a distinct improvement, but it still wasn’t enough. More water for the final night, please!

The guy in the wings was determined to get it right on the night. Instead of scooping water out of the fire bucket, he – being quite a strong lad - just picked up the bucket and chucked the lot over my head.

I don’t know if you have ever had two gallons of ice cold water thrown at you, let alone when you are in costume and about to return to a stage to deliver a couple of lines before you can escape, but I can tell you that the shock is a considerable one.

On the plus side, the laugh from the audience was the biggest of the night. As you can tell, that was an evening that I have not forgotten.

© John Welford

The Legends of John and Philip

At the end of the island where I live we are waiting for John to come back. At the other end, which we don’t ever visit, they are waiting for Philip. But we will see John back here long before they see Philip. John is a legend. I suppose Philip must be too, but our legend is better than theirs. That’s because ours is true and theirs is made up. I know this because my grandfather said so. He has actually seen John and knows he is real, but he hasn’t seen Philip. He thinks the people at the other end of the island made Philip up out of their own heads, just because we had John all to ourselves down here.

Grandfather is now a very old man, and it was when he was only a young boy that he saw John. It was at a time when huge ships, loaded with massive guns, went sailing past our island. Some people came from other islands and talked to our people about what was happening there.

It seems that on some of the larger islands people with much lighter skins than us arrived in big metal birds. They wanted to stay for some time, and they told the local people that they needed to attract much larger birds, but in order to do so they would have to clear away some of the forest and build a special track on which the birds could land.

This is what they did, and after the birds began to arrive, and the people had built huts near the end of track and really nice huts for them to live in themselves, all sorts of strange things started to arrive that were taken out of the birds and into the people’s new huts.

These people didn’t seem to do any work. They didn’t grow food or climb trees to gather coconuts, they stayed in their huts and the food arrived inside the birds, or so it seemed.

Some of the local people helped with unloading the birds, and what they unloaded was called “cargo” by the newcomers. It was wonderful stuff. They had boxes outside their huts that made whirring noises, and when this happened the inside of the huts were brightly lit, even if it was long after dark.

They even had boxes in their huts that cooked their food or kept it fresh during hot weather. One or two of them would go round the island in metal boxes that moved all by themselves.

This went on for some time, but one day all the people got into the metal birds and flew away, taking all their cargo with them.

Grandfather told me that some people on other islands wondered if there was a way of getting metal birds to come down and bring some cargo for them. What they did was go into the forest and cut down some of the trees in a long strip, just wide enough for a metal bird to land on. They built some huts at one end of the strip, just like the ones that the white-skinned people had built so that the cargo could be stored there before it was taken to their own huts.

Do you know, I’m just not sure if any cargo did land there, however much the people raised their hands to the sky and asked a metal bird to come down and land on their forest strip.

But we have something a lot better on our island. We have John Frum. At least, that is what everyone calls him. He came to our island once, a long time ago, but I’m not sure if he came in a metal bird or on a boat. He stayed for some time and then he went away again, but everyone just knows that he’ll come back one day. And when he does come back, everyone will be so, so happy because he’ll bring lots of cargo with him for everyone.

Grandfather has told me lots of stories about John Frum and all the wonderful things he did. He made people better when they were ill, by making them swallow tiny round pieces of food. If they did this for a few days, all their pains went away.

I have heard lots of other stories too, but I can’t be sure that they were all true. It was said that he could make a dish of water taste like anything you wanted it to be. When it was hot in a pot on the fire, he would drop some powder into it and it would smell wonderful and taste like nothing anyone had known before. John Frum had said that all the people where he came from drank this every day when they got up and it made them work so much better. He called it Caa Fie.

Some people said that John Frum could fly in the air and turn himself into birds or bats. Could he? Well, if he could make Caa Fie, who knows what he could do?

We had John Frum all to ourselves. At the other end of the island they say had a visit from a tall handsome man in a white costume who said his name was Philip. They asked him who he was and he said that he was the husband of a queen from a far distant land, and that this queen actually owned the island. That sounds very odd to me. If he was the husband of a queen, surely that would make him a king? It doesn’t add up. That’s why I think they invented him.

No, we’re far better off with John Frum, who’ll come back one day and bring lots of Caa Fie and other things with him. I asked Grandfather one day why he was called John Frum. He said it was because he had said – in a very funny voice that dragged out all the vowels, that he was “Jahn Frum Armorica” or something like that. Nobody was quite clear what the last word was – it might have Ormerocaw or Hamvericore or almost anything. So everyone just stuck with what they could agree on, which means that we are all now waiting for the return of our very own John Frum.

© John Welford

Blue Shade Views

God was in a bit of a stroppy mood. This was not unusual for God – his strops came at fairly regular intervals and the consequences could be distinctly uncomfortable for anyone within range of his thunderbolts.

He had been having quite a good time designing the planets round his latest star. Mercury had been OK for starters, and he quite liked Mars, although he had a sneaking feeling that all those lovely rivers and seas might not last as long as he had originally intended.

But the real problem was Venus. He had had all the right surveys done and had listed all the chemicals that were to comprise its atmosphere, but made the unforgiveable mistake of leaving the actual ordering and supply of the materials to a useless bunch of underling angels who couldn’t count. As a result, his lovely new planet didn’t stand a hope in Heaven (this was in the days before Hell had been invented) of it ever supporting what God wanted to call Life.

God knew precisely how much methane and carbon dioxide there should have been for a planet in the position it occupied in a solar system, but those clowns had managed to order vastly more volcanoes than they should have done, and these had been spewing so much in the way of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that Venus was doomed from the outset with the surface temperature rising far too high for any surface water or anything that could remotely be described as living.

Hence God’s extreme annoyance, coupled with the wish to start again and not get it wrong a second time.

He decided that his next project should be a planet between Venus and Mars. This time there would be no mistakes, nothing like as many volcanoes, and lots of water. Once he got life established it would continue for ever afterwards, and there was not the slightest chance of global warming getting out of hand, however long one looked ahead. How could it? It was impossible!

For one thing, he had had the notion, after he had played around with dinosaurs for a hundred million years or so, of developing creatures that walked on two legs and had proper brains. These would be so intelligent that there was no way they could possibly allow the planet to get too warm, or be led by people who had less than half the average brain power. That just had to be God’s brightest idea yet.

Once God got creative there was no stopping him, and he soon had lots of clever thoughts about the new planet. He had not yet decided on a name – perhaps he might hold a competition among the angels and pick the best suggestion? That would be fine, just as long as it didn’t end up as Planet McPlanetface.

He was very happy with the red colour he had given Mars and thought that this would suit the latest creation as well. He had a word with Bert, the angel in charge of the warehouse, about ordering lots more red, but was disappointed to learn that this wouldn’t be possible.

“We can do some of it in red”, Bert told him, “but we used so much on Mars that there isn’t much left. There are some bits down the bottom that we can do in red, the bits that nobody would actually want to settle in if their ancestors had not been forced to go there, but that’s about it”.

“What else have you got?” God asked.

“There’s lots of green, brown and yellow”, Bert said. “You can have as much as you want of all of them”.

“Great”, said God, “we’ll do the dry bits in green and yellow and the wet bits in brown”.

“Brown?” said Bert. “You cannot be serious. It’ll look awful. Do you really want all your continents swimming in chocolate sauce?”

“Have you got any better suggestions?” God asked.

“Funny you should mention that”, said Bert. “I’ve just taken delivery of a brand new colour that I think you’ll love for your seas and oceans. It’s called blue.”

“Tell me more”, said God.

“I’ve got the colour chart here”, said Bert. “Just look at all the shades you can have. There are different blues for angry seas, calm seas, in-between seas, seas at different times of day, seas near the land and seas nowhere near the land, the choice is yours.”

“I see”, said God, “and you can supply all these shades?”

“No problem”, said Bert. “And then for your skies …”

“Skies?” said God.

“That’s the trouble with you deities”, said Bert. “You’re always looking down, you never think about looking up. You need a decent colour for your lifeforms to look up at.”

“How about magnolia?” God suggested.

“Magnolia? You must be joking. That’s so boring”. said Bert. “Let’s go back to the blue idea. You could have a different shade of blue for the sky and coordinate it with your sea colour. How about this lovely pale shade?”

“What do you call that?” God asked.

“It hasn’t got a name yet”, said Bert, “but if you choose it we could just call it ‘sky blue’”.

“I like it”, God said. “We’ll have sky blue all the way across the planet”.

“Small problem there”, said Bert, “You’re going to have to get some of your water out of the oceans and on to the land, otherwise the green bits won’t stay green for very long. And that means you can’t have unbroken blue skies everywhere. Some places will have to make do with grey for much of the time”.

“Such places as?”

“These islands about three quarters of the way up. I reckon you could cut down on the blue quite a lot there, and stick mostly to grey”.

“But won’t the two-legged brainy lifeforms complain if they hardly ever get any blue skies?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much”, said Bert. “It’ll give them something to talk about. You take it from me – they’ll just love it”.

 © John Welford

An Invitation

The envelope was pushed under the door of my hotel room while I was over on the other side of the bed, so when I rushed across to open the door and see who was there, it was too late. The corridor was empty and I was left standing on my own to wonder who might have delivered whatever it was.

I had not been in the small Dutch town long and had yet to get my bearings. I had some business to undertake the following day and had nothing else in mind that evening other than going out for a meal and then straight to bed. I knew nobody here, so who on earth could be pushing strange notes under my door?

I opened the envelope as I stood there. The card inside bore an invitation, of sorts. All it said was:

“Come to 28 Prinzengracht at any time you like. Just walk in and come upstairs. MCE.”

The only thought that came to mind was to quote Lewis Carroll: “Curiouser and curiouser”.

But, just like Alice, I had no intention of letting the mystery lie where it was. I decided that, after my meal, I would take up the invitation to visit the address on the card.

I had no idea where Prinzengracht was, so after I had eaten in the small restaurant near my hotel, I asked the waiter for directions. He was curious as to why I wanted to go there at what was now quite a late hour. What number was I going to?

I thought I could detect a hint of a smile on his face after I said “Twenty-eight”, but maybe I was imagining this. Or maybe not.

The door of Number 28 was closed, but the handle turned easily enough and I walked straight in, just as suggested by the invitation.

There was no passageway or sign of other doors, just a staircase leading upwards. “Come upstairs”, the invitation had said, so I did just that. At the top of the first flight there was a sharp turn to the right, and another flight of stairs. There were no windows or doors on either side, but the stairs were well lit. I kept climbing upwards.

After the second flight there was another right-angled turn, then another, and another. The stairs just kept going on, and on, and on.

The thought struck me that this house must be immensely tall, given how many stairs I must have climbed, but I had certainly not been aware as I walked along Prinzengracht that any of the houses were higher than what one might expect to find in a typical street in a small town in the Netherlands.

At last, I could see a window in the side wall. When I got there I peered through it to see just how high up I was. But the view I had was of a typical street in a small town in the Netherlands. I was no higher off the ground than the lampposts that shed their weak light over the street.

I decided that I had had enough of this, so I turned round to take the stairs back the way I had come.

But that was when things got even stranger than they were already, if that was possible. The stairs did not go down at all, only up. What? If I had climbed all that way up, how come I could not go down? But that was precisely what I was faced with – whichever way I turned, the stairs only went up, and they never took me any higher than I was already.

When I next came to the window I could see a card on the window sill, which I could swear had not been there before. I picked it up and read:

“Welcome to my house. I hope you like it. Don’t worry, just snap your fingers and you’ll be back on the street. Yours in jest, M C Escher”.

© John Welford

Try Again, Ollie

St Peter had not been long in charge of the Pearly Gates, which give access to Heaven if you meet his strict criteria, before he became aware of a tricky issue that was raised by a number of would-be entrants.

This was when a recently disembodied soul, faced with the prospect of doing a considerable amount of time in Purgatory, asked St Peter if they could not possibly be given a second go at Life. They had made a hash of their first attempt, for one reason or another, and would quite like to show that, if given the opportunity, they could pass muster for direct entry if allowed the chance.

Being a reasonable sort of saint, Peter pondered the mattered for a few centuries and then came up with the answer. He decided to institute an Office for Reincarnation and appointed the Angel Gabriel to run it, seeing that he had far less to do these days now that all the most important Heavenly messages had been delivered to potential parents of Biblical characters.

Gabriel’s office, just down the road from the Pearly Gates, was soon doing a roaring trade and there always seemed to be a steady queue of souls hoping to be given their second chance.

It has to be said that Gabriel did not always get it right, and he made some appalling mistakes down the centuries. Genghis Khan was one such example, when Gabriel delivered his soul, after a suitable break, to a couple in Upper Austria called Alois and Klara. The boy began well enough, having distinct artistic tendencies, but it all went horribly wrong when he grew a silly moustache and started throwing his right arm upwards at a 45-degree angle.

On the other hand, it was nothing sort of genius giving Lucrezia Borgia another go as Florence Nightingale, and who else could Isaac Newton return as other than Albert Einstein?

Never let it be said that Gabriel did not have a sense of humour. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was full of complaints that he had been cut off in his prime and had plenty of great works up his sleeve, but surely turning into Mick Jagger was far from what he had in mind. No wonder he would lament in his new incarnation that he “could get no satisfaction”.

Gabriel had a particular challenge when Oliver Cromwell turned up. St Peter had been sorely tempted to point him straight down the road to the fiery furnace, but allowed himself to be persuaded otherwise. Oliver was quite convinced that he deserved direct entry in the other direction, but Peter had no intention of going that far. Instead, it was down the road to the Office for Reincarnation for the former Lord Protector of England.

Gabriel looked down the latest applicant’s CV and was distinctly unimpressed.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right”, he said. “You made war against the official King of England and Scotland, and eventually had his head cut off. A King, I might add, who has gone straight through the pearly Gates and is even now knocking back the ambrosia and twanging a harp. Give him a few more centuries and he might even learn to play it in tune.”

“He opposed the will of the people and the legally elected Parliament of the land”, said Oliver.

“So what?” said Gabriel. “Kings can do that if they like.”

“But they shouldn’t be allowed to”, said Oliver. “They should only rule with the consent of the people, as expressed through their elected representatives in Parliament.”

“I see that you then took over as ruler in his place”, said Gabriel.

“Indeed so”, Oliver replied. “But I refused to take the title of King.”

“And presumably you then allowed the rule of the people of England to determine your actions, said Gabriel”.

“Absolutely”, said Oliver.

“As expressed through their elected representatives in Parliament?”

“But of course”.

“On the other hand”, said Gabriel, “I see that one of your first acts after gaining power was to chuck out of Parliament all the members who opposed your intention of cutting off the head of King Charles.”

“So what if I did?”

“And you seriously want a second chance?”

“Why not?”

“Tell you what”, said Gabriel, “I’m in a good mood, so I’ll let you have another go if you’re prepared to wait a few hundred years.”

“Well, thanks for that”, said Oliver, “But can I ask you one more favour?”

“Which is?”

“I always hated the name Oliver. Could I be called something else when the time comes?”

“No problem”, said Gabriel. “I’ve got a great idea. How does the name Boris sound to you?”

© John Welford

Red Stains as the Sun Sets

It had been a beautiful late autumn day, but the sun was now setting fast and throwing a livid red glow across the thin clouds near the horizon. This was the view that Albert was privileged to enjoy from his clifftop home whenever the weather conditions allowed. I envied him that at least. 

However, given his advancing years, I often worried about how safe he was on his own, at least a mile from his nearest neighbour. That was why I called round frequently to see how he was. I had told him many times about my concerns for his well-being, but he always shrugged them off. I had nothing to worry about, he said, but that did not stop me from doing exactly that. 

Albert did not even have a telephone, mobile or landline, so what was he going to do if an emergency arose? “I’ll be fine”, he kept telling me, “I’ve been fine living here for more than 50 years, and I’m sure I’ll be fine for as many years in the future as the good Lord chooses to give me.”

On the day in question I knocked at the door of the old one-floor coastguard cottage but got no reply. This was strange, because Albert was always there when I called round, which I did at least once a week, and sometimes more frequently. I assumed that he must have gone down the rutted track to make a call from the telephone box on the main road. Hardly anyone used that phone box these days, apart from Albert, and another of my worries was what he would do when it was taken away, which was surely bound to happen before long. 

But what if my assumption had been wrong? I therefore thought it best to check all round the cottage just in case Albert had had some kind of accident. I peered through the windows and had a shock when I looked through the window of Albert’s lounge. There was a pure white woolen rug in front of the fireplace, with what appeared to be a sizable dull red stain on it. 

The first thought that came to my mind was that this was a large bloodstain. The second thought was that I was being ridiculous, and it was probably nothing worse than the result of spilled red wine or red paint.

The third thought was to dismiss both these possibilities, on the grounds that Albert never drank wine and there was no evidence of any part of the room having been painted red.

My fourth thought therefore reverted to my first, namely that Albert had indeed had an accident and was lying somewhere in the cottage having been seriously injured – or worse. I had to get in and find him.

I reckoned that Albert belonged to the generation that keeps a spare key under an overturned flowerpot next to the back door. I was not wrong. I was therefore soon able to make a thorough search of the cottage, looking for Albert, but he was not there. I went back to the lounge to have a closer look at the red stain, and was still trying to work out what it was when a key turned in the lock of the front door and Albert came in. He was a bit surprised to see me there, but welcomed me all the same.

“Hello, John”, he said. “I see that you’re looking at my new rug. I had it delivered today, but I don’t think it’s the same as the one I ordered at the shop. It’s got this horrible red mark on it – I wonder what it is?”

I said that I had also had the same thought, but I did not tell Albert that I had just searched the cottage looking for his mangled dead body.

Albert explained that he had just come back from the phone box, where he had phoned the carpet shop to complain and arrange for the correct rug to be delivered the next day.

He then had some more news for me.

“I’ve been thinking over what you keep going on to me about – whether I’m safe here”, he said. “I’ve done something about it. Wait here a minute and I’ll introduce you to my new friend.”

Albert then left by the back door and returned a minute later, holding a large rottweiler dog by its lead. 

“I reckon that Buster here will keep me safe and protect me from any intruders. What do you think?”

I had no choice but to agree, this being because Albert promptly let go of the lead and Buster leapt into action to protect his new master from an unrecognized stranger.

Buster’s particularly sharp teeth were soon embedded in my hand, which later needed eleven stitches at the local A&E to close the gaping wounds. Needless to say I bled profusely, all over Albert’s white woolen rug.

So when the rug was collected by the man from the carpet shop the following day, it did indeed bear a deep red stain caused by blood, as I had suspected. I just never imagined the blood in question would be mine.

© John Welford

Guarding the Castle

I always hated going to The Castle. 

It wasn’t really a castle, of course, only the house opposite ours in Tatnam Road, Poole. It was owned by Mr and Mrs Marsh, who must have been in their mid-80s when I was just a small boy aged three or four.

My mother used to leave me with the Marshes when she had to go out during the afternoon, which was usually at least once a week. Those sessions with the Marshes are forever seared on my memory. In later life I have never suffered from boredom, because I can always relate any experience that smacks of tedium to what I suffered from the Marshes in terms of being mind-numbingly, limb-solidifyingly, Medusa-petrifactionally, bored! Droning teachers, 30-minute church sermons, speeches by Tory politicians – all of them were models of joyous excitement in comparison to those long-past afternoons at The Castle.

I called it The Castle because it had a large painting of Corfe Castle hanging over the fireplace in the front room. It was the only thing in the room that was worth looking at, and I did a lot of that. The painting might have been a wedding present from an artist friend more than half-a-century previously. I don’t suppose that it was all that great as a work of art, but it contained enough detail to allow my imagination to get to work on what might be going on within its shattered walls. Without that impetus, the boredom would have been completely unbearable.

It wasn’t really the Marshes fault. They were so much older than me that they had no idea how to entertain a small boy, especially as they had had no children of their own. I suppose they did their best, but their best was nothing like good enough. As a result, I just sat there, doing nothing apart from stare at the painting of Corfe Castle.

I probably bored them, which was why they were always pleased when other people called round and they could have long conversations as I sat in the room, understanding absolutely nothing of what they were talking about.

I imagined that I was being kept in The Castle’s dungeon. The room was certainly dark enough, given its dingy wallpaper, depressing brown paintwork and thick net curtains that kept out most of the daylight. It did not help, on these afternoons, that this room faced east as opposed to our own west-facing front room just over the road, which was where I so wanted to be.

I knew that prisoners in dungeons were fed on water and dry bread. At least I got a glass of milk and a small plate of biscuits, although these were always boring ones like rich tea or malted milk. There was nothing as exciting as a custard cream or – Heaven forfend – a chocolate digestive!

The Castle had its own garrison, in the form of old soldier Mr Marsh. He showed me his army medals one day, and also a photo of him in uniform together with a group of his colleagues. I knew that I had uncles who had fought in World War I but Mr Marsh could go one better than that – his fighting experience had been in South Africa during the Boer War that ended in 1902!

 I learned later that the real name of the house was Mafeking, the reason for which was clear enough.

However, what sealed that house as The Castle for me was the fact that its entrance was guarded by two formidable sentries. They stood either side of the path that led to the front door, being two large hydrangea bushes. I used to think that Mother had to give these bushes the password before she could knock on the door. 

Those bushes never liked me. Mother was not a tall woman, but at the age I was then I was clearly much shorter that her and the bushes were roughly the same height as me. The bushes stared at me, one on either side, laughing to themselves as we waited for the door to be opened. They knew what was going to happen.

At the end of the afternoon I had to pass between the hydrangea bushes a second time. I could hear them giggling as I did so. “See you soon” they said, mockingly.

I have always liked Corfe Castle and bought a painting of it myself many years later. I have also taken a number of photos of it and learned its history.

But I have always hated hydrangeas.

© John Welford

What's In a Name?

I once ran a company library that gave the impression of having been founded sometime in the Middle Ages. I was the first professional that had ever been employed there, and it showed. Nothing seemed to make sense in terms of how it operated, how the stock was arranged, how it was processed, or anything else. Needless to say, I soon got to work on improving matters, and I like to think that I made a huge difference in terms of turning the place into an asset that was of real benefit to the company’s employees.

The original appalling state of affairs applied to the archaic system used for issuing books to the very few customers that came through the door in the early days. Everything was written down in a huge loose-leaf ledger that sat on the library counter, with pages labelled according to the borrower’s name with the titles of the items they had borrowed written down when they went out and crossed through on return. To call it a system was an insult to the word “system”.

Eventually I was able to install a much more efficient way of working, but in the meantime I had no choice but to carry on with what was there. 

Margaret, my assistant, had been working in the library for years, was not far short of retiring, and naturally knew everyone who came through the door, having no trouble in turning to the right place in the ledger. As a newbie, I did not have that advantage and had no choice but to ask everyone who came to the desk what their surname was.

One morning, when Margaret was out of the room, a customer came to the counter who wanted to borrow something. I therefore needed to turn to the massive ledger, which was always referred to by the library staff as “The Bible”.

“And your name is?”

“Mudd”.

I couldn’t believe it. The poor guy had clearly spent much of his life bemoaning the fact that his name was always going to be Mudd whatever he might or might not have done, and here I was reminding him of the fact. I did, however, manage to keep a straight face until after he had left the library.

However, that did not stop me from wanting to tell Margaret the good news when she came back, which she did at the same time as another customer walked in, going straight to the shelves to find the one item he needed.

“Would you believe it?” I said. “I ask him his name and he says ‘My name is Mudd’. I know we shouldn’t laugh at people because of something they can’t help, like their name, but there are occasions when it becomes very difficult not to”.

As I was talking to Margaret I had my back to the counter so I couldn’t see what Margaret could see, which was the customer who had found what he wanted and was now standing there waiting to be served. There was no doubt that he had heard every word I had said.

The expression on Margaret’s face was an odd combination of horror and delight. I realized afterwards that the horror was due to what she knew was about to happen. The delight had more to do with the opportunity she now saw to put this new whippersnapper, with all his crazy idea for change, firmly in his place.

She could, of course, have leapt to my rescue by reaching for the Bible and turning immediately to the right page for the man at the counter. She much preferred, however, to let events take their course.

Which they did.

I therefore asked the usual question. “Your name is?”

“Strange”.

© John Welford

Apologies for Spillages

Her cup of coffee was delivered with a sachet of sugar. As the café’s sole employee plonked the cup down on the formica surface a slurp of brown liquid spilled on to the table. “Sorry”, said the greasy-haired waitress.

With nothing else to do the customer opened the sachet and let its grains spill out on to the table. She didn’t take sugar in coffee but opened the sachet anyway. “I’ve paid for it”, she said in a low mumble, not intending anyone to hear.

The grains scattered on the table and some were absorbed by the split coffee. Others fell to the floor, where the waitress’s feet cracked them like ants’ eggs as she passed by to wipe down a neighbouring table with her filthy dishcloth.

With only half her lukewarm coffee drunk, the customer rose and bumped into the waitress as she threw back her chair.

“Sorry” she said, not looking at her.

Outside the café a man sat in the doorway of a permanently closed shop, holding up a plastic coffee cup. “Spare change?” he muttered.

“Sorry”.

A mother with a young child on a bike with stabilisers came by. The child careered into the man, knocking his beaker of coins to the ground.

“Say sorry to the man”. But the child did not, and the mother did not insist.

It was bin day, and the men were pulling wheeled bins into place ready for the truck to come along. One of the men did not see the café customer as she walked past and he bumped into her.

“Sorry”.

She took offence and pushed over the bin that the man was wheeling. The lid fell open and the rubbish spilled into the road.

“Sorry”, she said.

It lifted her mood to see the anger of the bin man as he tried to push the detritus backed into the bin as the bin lorry approached. She stepped backwards into the road, paying no attention to what was behind her.

That was why she did not see the car that sped past the bin lorry, being driven by a young man who was high on drink and drugs. Her body was flung high into the air and landed on the road. What spilled on to the tarmac was the colour of neither sugar nor coffee.

The young man drove on, not aware of what he had done. He did not say Sorry, but would not have been alone that day in not meaning it had he done so.

© John Welford

The Old Man and the Mountain

The old man had lived on his own in the white-walled cottage on the side of the valley for as long as anyone could remember.

He was an artist, and in his younger days he had toured round the local countryside, painting pictures of local people as they were going about their business or enjoying themselves in the local taverns, playing cards or dancing to a gipsy violin. It was believed by some that he was quite famous and that his paintings fetched good prices when bought by rich people in the city, but nobody had ever seen much evidence of his wealth.

Latterly, most of his work was done on the verandah of his cottage, where he could be seen at his easel painting the scene that lay before him. It was said that he had painted the same panorama more than a hundred times, and that every painting was different.

Prominent in all these paintings was the mountain that rose above the far side of the valley. It was the only mountain of any size for miles around, although it was by no means difficult to climb. There were well-trodden paths that led all the way to the top and people said that there was a marvelous view from the summit.

As he painted, the old man was often greeted by tourists who were on their way to the mountain, equipped with walking poles and rucksacks.

People sometimes stopped and watched him at work, occasionally asking him what could be seen from the top of the mountain.

“I don’t know”, said the old man. “I’ve never been there”.

“Never been to the top?” would be the reply. “But surely you want to see what’s on the other side?”

“Perhaps I will”, he would say. “One fine day I’ll climb the mountain and see for myself”.

But he never did.

The locals were quite correct to think that the old man was widely respected in the artistic world, and he would sometimes be visited by other artists who wanted to learn from him and see for themselves where his inspiration lay.

From time to time an artist would follow the tourists to the mountain-top and then come back and tell the old man what they had seen.

“It’s a splendid view”, they would say. “You really should go and see it. It would give you a whole new focus for your work”.

“Who knows?” the old man would say. “One fine day I might just do that.”

But after his guests had left the old man would get his easel out and paint his mountain one more time.

The view he had from his cottage was perfect for him. As the seasons changed and the day flitted from dawn to dusk there were so many variations in the colours and shades that the scene presented to him, that he saw no need to be anywhere else.

And yet, at the back of his mind, there was always the lingering thought that he might – just once – give way to curiosity and climb the mountain to look at what lay on the other side. However, he also believed that this would not happen until he was ready to stop painting. Would the magic of his view of the mountain be lost for ever if that view changed? If he conquered the mountain, would the mountain have conquered him? If that happened, he knew that he could never paint again.

But maybe, just maybe, one fine day …

The day came when he was no longer to be seen on his verandah, painting at his easel. He was found lying on his bed, perfectly still and at peace. A note was found next to him. It read “Please scatter my ashes on the mountain. The day of my visit is long overdue.”

So that is what they did. Had the fine day eventually arrived? Not exactly. The day when his ashes were scattered was the only thoroughly wet one all that summer.

 © John Welford

Nautical Rainbows From a Long time Ago

After my mother’s funeral there was a cup of tea and a bun or two at the back of the church. While we chatted and renewed acquaintances with people we had not seen for a number of years, sometimes decades, a slideshow of thirty or forty old photos was projected in a continuous loop on a blank wall. These brought back a lot of memories, not only of my mother but of other family members.

One of them showed a long table on a stage at which sat a number of people, including a portly, middle-aged man wearing a chain of office, and his wife who was wearing an impressive hat and a somewhat less impressive chain that was a pale imitation of that worn by her husband. At one corner of the photo was a small boy in a sailor suit being directed on to the stage by a large hand on his shoulder.

That small boy was me. I could only have been four or five years old, but I remember the incident very well.

The photo had been taken only a few yards from the wall on which it was being projected. At that time the church held an annual bazaar in the halls just behind the church. This took place over two afternoons, and it was customary for the town mayor, or his deputy, to declare the event open on the first afternoon, which was always mid-week.

The bazaar always had a theme, and in the year in question it was named the Nautical Sale, which is why I was wearing a sailor suit.

My job was to present a large bouquet of flowers to the Lady Mayoress. I was simply told to walk on to the stage and give the flowers to the lady. Unfortunately, I was not told which lady that was, and there were several to choose from. I simply shoved the bouquet at the first lady I saw and ran back to safety as the hall erupted in laughter.

A year or two later I made another appearance on the same stage, but in a very different role. This time the bazaar was the Rainbow Fair, and on the Saturday afternoon the children of the Sunday School put on a short dramatic presentation before the buying and selling began.

My role was that of a grey cloud. I had to run round the stage in the company of a small girl who was dressed as a white cloud. After a few circuits we had to bump into each other and pretend to burst into tears. At this point another young thespian wearing a huge yellow disc appeared, closely followed by seven others, each wearing a different colour of the rainbow.

The costume mistress must have had a wonderful time getting everyone dressed, especially when it came to the kid playing the role of Indigo. I think a lot of crepe paper was used in the production.

Had I gone on in later life to become a famous actor, I would probably have recounted my portrayal of “grey cloud” as the first step on my path to greatness. Things did not quite work out that way, although I did take part in many dramatic productions during my time at school and university. The only claim to fame I can make as a stage performer is that I did once play opposite somebody who went on to achieve a certain amount of fame and fortune as an actor. I knew him as John Marshall but he later changed his name to John Sessions.

Perhaps my early childhood memories did teach me a couple of lessons for what life might throw at me. One of these was that giving expensive gifts to the wrong woman is never a wise move. The other was that crashing into strange women and making them cry is more likely to lead to assault charges than rainbows. 

© John Welford

Your Next Station Stop

I seem to have spent an awful lot of my life travelling on trains, and my journeys have not always gone according to plan. Odd things have happened from time to time, such as the time when I was returning from university in North Wales to the south of England on a particularly crowded train and I had left my suitcase in the only place it would go, which was not far from a doorway. As I glanced out of the window, just as the train was about to depart from its stop at Oxford, I spotted a suitcase standing on the platform that looked remarkably like mine. I was able to rescue it just in time.

Then there was the time when the guard made an announcement that a passenger who had left the train had forgotten his box of live snails, which he had placed underneath his seat. Would all passengers please check to see if their seat was the one in question? Needless to say, I was the snail guardian.

My first professional library post was in London, and my wife and I lived in a top-floor flat that overlooked the main line from Kings Cross to the North. This was also close to Harringay Station, so I had quite a straightforward journey to work.

At least, it was usually a straightforward journey, apart from the time when I was a bit late for my usual train and got on the one that was waiting at the platform I usually used, without checking where it was going to stop.

As a result, the train sailed through Harringay Station and did not stop until it reached Alexandra Palace, two stations up the line.

No problem, I thought, I’ll just get on the next one heading south, even if it means I have to go all the way back to King’s Cross. There was a train waiting on the adjoining platform, the sign on which read King’s Cross, so I promptly got on board.

However, when the train moved it headed north, not south. I had, naturally enough, relied on the sign that was telling me where the train had come from, not where it was going. This happened to be Hertford North, which, although some distance from where I wanted to be, was not a complete disaster as far as getting home in reasonable time was concerned. There were plenty of trains that went from Hertford North to Kings Cross, including many that stopped at Harringay. No problem.

At Hertford North, I saw a train that fitted the bill, standing at the platform for southbound trains. I got on board, confident that I could not possibly make the same mistake twice.

Of course I could. How was I to know that the platforms had been switched for operational reasons that week? Next stop Peterborough.

As I stood on the platform at Peterborough, 75 miles north of where I should have been, I realized that any further slip-ups could have much worse consequences, given that trains from here ran to York, Newcastle and Edinburgh. I therefore made absolutely certain that my next train would go south.

I now had two worries. One was what I was going to say to the ticket inspector when he questioned why I was on a train from Peterborough when my ticket only allowed me to travel as far north as Harringay. Fortunately, he was in a good mood that evening and let me get away with it.

My second concern was what my wife was going to say when I eventually got home. Had we had a dog, there would be little doubt that my dinner would now be inside it, but it was her withering stare and expressions of contempt that I was not looking forward to.

Oddly enough, the story I told went down quite well. I think she was happy to have an example of my monumental stupidity that could be stored away in the memory bank for use on some future occasion.

Needless to say, I did not make the same mistake again. Shortly after this, I switched from trains to buses as my means of getting to work.

© John Welford