Railway Nation: A Journey in Verse

This is the night mail crossing the Border

Bringing the cheque and the postal order

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor

The shop at the corner, the girl next door

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:

The gradient's against her, but she's on time...

The down Postal Special leaves Euston

For Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Coming over!

What's the game? Turn it up.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks

Letters of joy from the girl and the boy

Receipted bills and invitations

To inspect new stock or visit relations

And applications for situations

And timid lovers' declarations

And gossip, gossip...

LAUGHTER AND INDISTINCT CHATTER

Any more tickets, there? Thanks.

Just nice to get back into our own bed.

Today at dawn, the train is still asleep

When household staff arrive to make the creature fit to be itself

Now, once again

We leave from Euston, Glasgow-bound

Let's see who makes the passage north

31 and 32.

This singing lion conveys an epic...

Oh, thanks ever so, love. That's very kind of you.

Where the extras all have stories of their own

With casts of the thousands we shall never meet

As real and strange as those we find...

Do you want to take your jacket off, love?

Aboard this time machine with sandwiches

And Wi-Fi, where we work or natter...

Coach H.

Vanish off the clock and read

Or simply gaze at what the restless window offers up.

First, a London poet, here to reassure herself

That London's not the only world

But one you can escape

At last, the line is clear

The lights are green...

WHISTLE BLOWS

The whistle blows...

BEEPING

We're off.

London, we see you everywhere

You weigh on us like empty childhood pockets

You pull on us like overhead wires in need of water

And, oh, we need you like multistorey car park bricks

Whilst we sit stunned by your clouds.

This train is the 9:34 from Euston for Glasgow Central.

First stop will be Milton Keynes at 10:30, Coventry...

So, sometimes, when the low light of your crowded sky

Reminds us of another life

We try to leave you

We board your scarred transport

Fall past your flesh

Breathe in your blood until our eyes go red.

Do you want something to eat?

Can I have smoked salmon and scrambled egg?

Of course you can. No problem, darling.

And then there we are

Watching fully grown letters graffiti eulogy into your lungs

As we travel along.

Cheerio, London.

Yeah, that's it.

-Not the London that we know.

-No.

Straight lines, steel tracks

Slopes lurching, trees perching

Laughing at our imagining we'll find somewhere else to accept us

That journey is longer than we can know

For now, though, we go hopeful into tunnels

Stretches of darkness reminding us

It's nice to look out at something that can't look back, isn't it?

Right, please may I have 12 full...

salmon, seven, bacon sandwich, one,

sausage sandwich, two...

Er, well, I'm on the train, so it might cut out,

but, erm...we'll...we'll persevere.

Erm...

SHE LAUGHS

'I'm a political communications consultant...'

Yeah.

'..and I've done that all my life.'

Yeah. And how worried are you?

'I recently moved from London after living there nearly all my life

'and swapped the rat race, if you like,

'and now I go to the lovely, lovely place in Cumbria called Barbon.'

-Stranger things have happened.

-SHE CHUCKLES

'Yeah, I'm going home. I'm looking forward to going home.

'You have this sense of relief, really,

'that you're... You know, you're going somewhere lovely.'

OK, Simon, lovely to hear from you.

Yeah. And you. Bye-bye. Bye.

OK, darling.

You having black pudding, darling?

-I think so.

-It'll be just nice to get back into our own bed

and our own place. I tell you what,

I kept getting a crick in my neck with all those pillows.

I think just to have your own pillows...

Well, there is that, I suppose.

'When I initially get on the train,

'I tend to find my own seat and just kind of sit in the corner quietly.

'I'm very tired, cos I have to get up early, but I don't sleep,

'because I've done that before

'and ended up somewhere where I shouldn't be.'

'I get the train to see my five-year-old son.

'He was took into foster care, initially,

'and then he went up to live with my mum in Preston.

'I go up there once every two months to visit him

'and then I see him for four hours,

'and then I get the train back down to London.

'It's lovely seeing him, but it's even harder leaving him.

'It's hard to...

'walk away and know that I'm not going to see him again

'for a couple of months.'

And so we look around the carriage made of constant movement

Worrying, studying, reading, working

Distracting ourselves with the insides of others

Blanketing our veins with blankness for some seconds

Dissecting what our eyes and ears will give us

In the space between glass and grain

Searching for a truth that we can't find in the city

Travelling along, dreaming metronomes of certainties

Yearning for a quiet that we can't quite remember

Travelling along, stringing together better after better.

WOMAN SIGHS

THEY LAUGH

'I just get a little bag, a little gift bag.

'It makes me happy to buy stuff for him.

'I want him to know that his mum loves him

'and his mummy's still here and Mummy's...

'I don't want him to forget who I am.'

Yes, ma'am. Hello.

HE LAUGHS

Rubbish, please. Rubbish.

'When I go through the train, what makes me happy,

'and I can get the smile from somebody.'

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

'I get the smile from your face. It is a part of upliftment.'

Any rubbish, please? Any rubbish?

'The part of upliftment makes you feel great.'

INDISTINCT

Soon enough, soft waves of hills have replaced sloped roofs

Exposed tree roots ripple below the shadow of an England flag

And we've landed without flight in back gardens with trampolines

Allotments with abandoned greens

Burnt to ragged smithereens

Because for once the weather has been too hot, too dry

It's all right, we're sure you tried

We glance at blurred patio doors

Horses nibbling the edges of fields

Cement mixers stirring ground yet to be walked

And we know each other for a while

As we sit with the distinct rattle of a railway

As we think of the places we've called home.

Right, not far from Milton Keynes now.

Neither here nor there

Not north, not south

The town arrives at 10:12 faithfully

And on the sunlit platform

Those who plan to leave its quiet life

Resemble fugitives who any second now

May still be rumbled and led back into responsible sobriety

Hail, Milton Keynes

A garden city built on sound, enlightened principles

But somehow short of serpents.

Somebody said "thank you" to me. They must have seen the camera.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Do they not normally?

-Not often.

BEEPING

Now, oh, train, transport us

Somewhere less discreet

With idle conversation as a balm for solitude

This poet hopes to test the edge of things

The in-between that puts us to the question.

Up to the Midlands pelt inland

North as fast as the tracks would stand

The night mail had a pulse, a beat

Through dim-lit towns with empty streets

The steam train's steady metronome carried news from home to home

But this train sounds like a long-drawn breath

No beats, no breaks

So thoughts this morning move ungoverned, unconducted.

Stand up. You're in the man's way.

-Come on.

-He's all right.

-Don't be lazy.

-OK. All right.

-He's older than you, brother.

-OK, take it easy.

-He's all right.

-Yeah.

-OK, friend. All right.

Oh, you're a bad dog, you are.

'I think we all like a routine, don't we?'

-You'd better give him one in case he turns nasty.

-All right.

'Get on train, settle dog down, decide what I'm going to do,

'which might be read the paper.

'Often involves having a can of brown water.'

You guard this nice lady.

And her son.

LAUGHTER

'For the last ten or so years, on very nearly every Wednesday,

'I've been using the train in order to visit my elderly mother,

'aged 99, in a very nice care home.

'A good visit is where she greets the dog,

'when she remembers not just the dog's name, but my name as well.'

'I always announce myself. "It's John."

'And a bad day, "Who's that?"'

Thank you very much. That was really good.

We run our finger up the spine of England

Our touch shivers the oil seed fields

A copse of rooks goes up like smoke

A deer stalls at the sight of us

We steal its look, return it as we pass.

Teasel, thistle, willow herb

Bank up to let us through

For we have dates to honour, jobs to do.

Can I see your ticket, love, please? Righty ho. Thanks. Any more tickets?

Thanks.

Yeah, that's great, thanks.

'I've always loved trains, even as a small boy.'

Thanks very much.

INDISTINCT

That's a good one, that is.

Yeah, that one's all right.

'I grew up next to a railway yard.

'Always wanted a railway job.'

Any more tickets there? Thanks.

INDISTINCT

-Thanks.

-Cheers.

Any more tickets? Thanks.

'I got a railway job in 1988.'

-Ta.

-Thank you.

'So that's 28 years.

'I've got quite an archive of railway recordings of things that

'I've done, logs that I've kept.

'I'm a selfie master. I take selfies all the time.

'All the nameplates that's been on every Pendolino.

'Every locomotive I've been on. How many miles it's pulled my train.

'I'll leave them to York Museum.

'Somebody somewhere will one day want to look at them.

'Yeah, they're wonderful things.'

Yeah, that one's all right, thanks.

Thank you.

'If I'm on the train watching the scenery go by,

'that doesn't necessarily mean that brain is in neutral.

'Might be perceived by others as, "That bloke's daydreaming".

'Might be precisely the converse.'

Inside the train, we lose ourselves in work

Words fail us in transit

Phrases split by tunnels, questions left unanswered

As signals gutter out between towns.

I'm sorry, I can't really hear you. I'm on a train.

I'm sorry. I can't really hear at the moment.

We need to pass the test of place

To see each other face-to-face

But as we fly apart we tell what truths we can

In text and e-mail

Each carriage a cat's cradle of coded words

For love or money, plans or fears.

Oh, no, I don't have it. I haven't got any PPI, no. No.

Thank you.

Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye.

PPI. Oh, my goodness, they just don't leave you alone, do they?

Never have anything...

-That was a call you could have done without.

-I know. I know.

'Jan comes across as a very forthright lady.'

Can you pass me that menu, please, just so that I can see?

Cos I didn't... I don't know if it's coming round this afternoon or...

'In actual fact, underneath, she has a very, very bad mental situation.

'Basically nervousness.'

I didn't think I'd like the train, really, but I do.

-I much prefer this to driving.

-Yeah.

'I think primarily that's the reason why we've had to give up

'travelling down south in the car and choose the train route,

'because she feels so much happier and so much more secure that way.'

'I'm bipolar so I had a lot problems in my life.

'You're either one end of the spectrum or you're the other.

'Derek's been very good and he's very calm and he looks after me

'and he understands me.'

Have we got an arm in the chair? Oh, yes, I believe we've got...

Have you got one as well, or is that one between us?

-Oh, I think it's...

-It's a shared arm...

I'm going to have this one down as well. Yeah.

For some, the train holds all

Late gift of love and company

A fellow traveller to complete your thoughts, your compliment

That somebody who lifts the journey, makes it sing.

Oh, dear. I've knocked over your gin and tonic.

For others, this is respite from hopes and harms

Halts and missed connections

Held in abeyance as long as the West Coast Line.

It's raining, doggo.

The line darkens as it thickens, as it slows

Now is our last chance to tell you what we mean

We have it drafted

But thumbs hesitate above the lit word "Send"

Too late.

Yeah, it's Birmingham now.

Used to be the workshop of the world. Not any more.

All England is an elegy

And here we enter England's iron heart

Its time is done and here is immortality

It is so beautiful, this afterlife of brick and viaducts

And the descent beneath the earth to New Street

In its fresh clean trim.

Come on, dog. Have you got your bits?

It needs a song to praise it properly

The sound she makes emerging from the underworld

The singer of its loving tongue.

North now from Birmingham

Forward, like its motto

Beyond New Street's shining cathedral of rail

Its concrete and its tunnels

And out into the Black Country's surprising green and blue

Where you, iron horses, little wenches of the sidings

Watch over us on our journeys, our passings

Our homecomings

Through the Smethwicks

The factories laploved and tumbled

The trolleyed cup

With its rainbow of boat oil

And behind the overgrown buddleia

A dozen banqueting halls

Fizzing like bottles of pop on a Friday afternoon

With stunned new brides

And their bhangra-armed grooms

Their love is a journey to an unknown station.

-Good morning.

-Thank you.

-There you go. OK?

-Thank you.

You're welcome.

SHE CHUCKLES

'I suppose you never know who you're going to sit next to on a train.'

SHE CHUCKLES

'How I met my partner was sitting next to somebody on a train.

'By the time we got to Preston, I think we pretty much had

'exchanged life stories.'

-ANNOUNCER:

-Welcome to Sandwell and Dudley.

Have you got your charger?

Yeah. Do you need it? We've actually got a plug.

That is brilliant.

Are you cooking?

What are you looking at me like that for?

-What have you done?

-I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer.

You forgot to take the chicken...

THEY LAUGH

-So what are we eating?

-I'm so sorry.

-I'm so sorry.

-That's not even funny.

I was meant to take it out after uni and then I forgot.

-So it's still in the freezer? Are you kidding me?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Have you got a mic?

-Have they got a microwave?

-Yeah.

Defrost it.

You idiot.

-Yeah, but...

-You're an idiot.

-I'm so sorry. Let's swap back.

-That is my drink.

I know but it's mine cos I've been drinking from it.

But this is nearly finished.

THEY LAUGH

'Sharna, she's my best friend.

'I have known her since the third day of college

'so that would be in 2012.'

-Let's swap back.

-That's just greed.

-I'm so sorry.

-That's really greedy.

I don't know what overtook me.

I don't know why your hand is coming over here.

'Sharna's just about to move into London and start uni.

'I've been at uni for two years now so I am being like the nagging mum.

'Nearly every day I tell her the same things on WhatsApp.

'"Have you got a job yet? Have you signed your contract?"'

Oh, my God, do you know the exam that I did for this course?

-Mm.

-I got the highest.

-Well done.

I remember when you used to get zero out of five in psychology.

THEY LAUGH

-Why are you so stupid?

-Shut up.

-Do you remember that?

You're such a good friend(!)

I think I've got a picture of your zero out of five.

Can I ask you a quick question? Why have you got one pink nail?

THEY LAUGH

Little horses watch over the wenches

Laughing in their gorgeous make-up

Off into their new life or just off chapping it...

INDISTINCT

Watch over the babbies dozing...

Are you going to see Daddy? Yes.

As their mums press their cheeks to rain-jewelled windows.

Watch over Sam solving six down for Leila from Stafford

Mikhail on the early shift

Mrs Begum alighting for HMP Featherstone

And as we pass

Watch over Sharon-Ann's Academy of Cheer and Dance

A sparkler of joy in the trading estate's gloom.

Watch over the blokes at the breaker's yard

Dismantling acres of vans and rusted Fiestas

The old boys downing Banks's in Keighley pubs

The terriers snookelling off

To the secret nettled heaven of the allotments.

I just wonder how many times I've been past here.

Many, I think.

'There's, I mean, jobs where you become the job.

'And you work hard, then all of a sudden you've got

'a seven or eight-year-old girl, child, she's your daughter,

'but you're still at a loss to know what to do with her.

'You don't really see her cos you're always at work.

'I don't see her now.

'She's went to university and got a degree

'and that's the best I can hope for her.'

'I often think to myself, "What does he think?"

'Why doesn't he see Mummy as often as he should?

'There's only so much you can tell a five-year-old.

'I tell him Mummy's not been well. That's part of the truth.

'I had a lot of personal issues.

'I just used to drink to block things out.

'But it cost me... It's cost too much in my life now.

'It just makes the depression and the anxiety worse.

'To have your child took

'is just the most horrible pain that you can even imagine.'

-Thanks very much, ta.

-Thank you.

All tickets, thanks.

I'll come and see you in a minute.

Any more tickets? Thanks.

Bless them all, little horses

As the estates yield

To wild fields of clover and straddling pylons.

Bless us all.

Where are we now then?

-We're heading for Crewe.

-Crewe?

For some days, it feels life is nothing but travelling

Waving goodbye to all we know

Never quite certain of who we leave

And who we take with us

Carried in our souls like precious luggage.

Watch over those who have long gone

Taken the dawn train with a one-way ticket.

Coming into Crewe station.

And those not born yet.

Those sweet, unseen passengers

Still held in the darkness

Waiting for the signal

The green light and the whistle

To call them into that first great station of their lives.

When railways built the universe

Crewe Junction was the centre

Through which all the world would pass.

We glimpse rail's wrecked cathedral now

The platform desperate to be off

The place is all goodbyes.

Suppose the secret rule of life is loss

And yet this poet travels to affirm

That still we're moving.

Watch the lines divide and cross

Divide and cross

Breathe in and brave it out

And go.

The piston kiss

Door hiss of mechanical arrival, departure.

Past the towns that rise and fall

Like breath from the fields.

Listen. The bricks are sighing

The windows wheezing with the dusty light.

Towns like these were built

On the backs of what the night carriages chuffed in.

500 bags must be unloaded,

1,000 loaded, engines changed,

and some of the English crew exchanged for Scots.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

I'd like to welcome customers with Virgin service to Glasgow Central.

Calling next at Wigan North Western in ten minutes.

-Coffee with milk for you, madam?

-Yes, please.

Thank you very much.

I was thinking tomorrow, if it was nice, we might go over to Lismore.

What do you think?

Yes, that would be nice, but once we get over there,

I can't ride a bike now!

Well, we'll have another taxi on that.

Yes, we could go to the little tearoom, couldn't we?

-We could go to the tearooms, have a coffee or something.

-Yeah.

-'We've gone to Scotland for a long time.

-37 years.'

And we used to go as a foursome with our husbands.

And then Iris lost her husband in 2003.

And Brian died last year.

I miss Brian terribly, terribly, terribly.

He was my rock, he made me laugh.

He was awkward.

But...I loved him to bits.

-I wonder how many years it is since we've been.

-Gone where?

-Gone to Lismore.

-What would it be?

-15 years?

-It's meant to be quite nice.

Yes, I should think it is. No, more than that, probably.

Dragged by the empty carriage of your body

Into a stillness which keeps moving

You are coupled to the thought of him.

His arms, his laugh

The thatched fields of his stubble

The gradual nature of his leaving.

His name whistling through your ribs

Echoing through the empty midnight platform of your person.

The motorway's gone now.

SHE LAUGHS

Train's two minutes late at Preston.

-We're almost up.

-I know.

Preston will be the next stop in a minute or two. Thank you.

What is a journey

If not the constant leaving behind of things

And the potential for potential itself?

New connections

Brief stops by the body of another.

It's worth the journey, it's worth the journey, without a doubt.

Even if I saw him for an hour, it would mean millions to me.

Because it's my birthday on Friday.

It's going to be the best birthday present for me, basically,

seeing my little boy.

I just can't wait to give him a great big hug.

I've had relationships and, you know, I've been in love

but when you've got a child, it's just a different bond.

It's the deepest love that I've ever had.

You might have noticed

That even families who live with the backs of their homes to a rail line

Will still stop in their garden

To watch and wave as a train goes by.

What I mean is there are things you might not get used to.

But there is, in a bedroom of a house like that

A child who no longer wakes

For every horn, bark, brake, squeal that shudders by.

What I mean is it is possible

To settle into a life that feels constantly in motion.

Oh, I'm tired.

-INAUDIBLE

-Yeah. Really early.

It's all this week, catching up with me.

What you talking about?

What is he doing?

Make sure you've got nothing... It comes up like Beyonce.

I'm literally going to die.

It's going to be so good. Oh, I'm so jealous.

I would actually cry.

Just listening to her on YouTube is getting me hyped,

never mind seeing her in real life.

# ..If you don't You'll be alone

# And like a ghost I'll be gone

-# All the single ladies

-All the single ladies

-# All the single ladies

-All the single ladies

-# All the single ladies

-All the single ladies

# All the single ladies

# Now put your hands up, oh oh oh

# Oh oh oh oh oh Oh oh oh oh... #

-This is a really good service, isn't it, on the train?

-Yes, it is.

It's very good indeed.

I can cope with this for a long time.

THEY LAUGH

-# .. All the single ladies

-All the single ladies... #

Like a dance floor or a buffet car

The same awkward gathering

Rocking side to side with people you've never met

Other people as of yet unknown to you

Other than the smell of the day they've had

And their yearning to get somewhere soon.

-Time to leave.

-Yeah, I think so. Lift the arms up.

-Make sure you get everything.

-Yeah.

We don't want to leave anything behind. OK?

-You get the big case, love.

-Right.

'To be honest, when I got married the second and third time,

'I knew it wasn't going to last.

'But when Derek and I got married, I knew it was for life.'

There they are, down there.

'You just know. I felt that that was destiny.'

No, don't you take it, lovey.

ALL TALK AT ONCE

-It's great to see you.

-And you, love.

-Give us your stuff.

Thanks, lovey.

Thank you...

'He's my companion, he's my soul mate.

'He's just there, we're just there together, we do everything together.

'Everything.'

It is possible to move forwards and remember both the same.

-It's nice to be home.

-Yes.

It's nice to be home.

To see someone leaving as opening a space

You can step full-hearted into.

Do you remember when we went on the little train up to Oban?

It stopped at every little station, didn't it?

And it isn't until the end

As you pull in to your destination

That you realise there even was a journey

That things have shifted

That your heart is not the place you thought it was

That the empty seat beside you can be filled

That someone can ask if they can sit by you

And you will say yes

Yes, please, I'd like that.

Now, this is seriously north

The forests wear a darker green

Soon now will come the border.

Past Carlisle, a colder air

Will bring the heart to order.

For the end of this affair

Almost more than we can bear

Our final poet takes us there.

Heading north is a leap of the heart

On the map, on the phone

The blue dot is the pulse that crosses the border

Clouds swing open over the hills

And train chases river

Races after it like a Border reiver

Like a long-distance runner

Breathing hard into the wind

With its flag of light flying behind.

-This is a side road.

-That's right.

-That's a motorway up there.

There, yes.

Anyway, go on, yes.

And then they had a chicken breast

-and a mushroom and wine sauce.

-Oh, yeah.

-The main course.

-That'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Yes, it was, it was very nice.

There's the motorway there now, look.

-To where?

-The motorway, over there.

-Oh, yes.

Anyway, go on, yes.

So that was very nice, and then they had a trio of sweets.

-Oh, yes, what did they have for that, then?

-Like that.

They had cherry cheesecake.

I wonder if there's any salmon in there.

SHE CHUCKLES

Yes, anyway, go on.

Well, in my opinion,

the cheesecake was a little bit big

and it had this huge cherry on the top.

Afternoon, ladies. Can I get you any fruit today?

-Oh, I'll have a banana, please.

-Banana?

-Would that be all right?

-Yes, of course.

-Thank you very much.

-What about yourself?

-No, thank you.

-OK, no problem at all.

-That's lovely.

'I'm not very good at relaxing.

'When I go over the border, I relax.

'Once I get into Scotland, I relax.

'The river's beautiful and we recognise things from the train

'that we used to see when we went up in the car.

'It's memories, but it's sort of doing things differently.'

I brought you, um...

-..to show you.

-Oh, wow.

-CHUCKLING:

-And when I was going through the photographs,

I found that one.

I think that's the first time I ever thought you looked a bit like me.

Don't you think so?

-Oh, I think you may be right, yes.

-SHE CHUCKLES

-Deary me.

-It's your default position, is asleep.

-Cheeky!

Between home and elsewhere

Between in here and out there

One journey is layered over the other

One time on another

Meeting a stranger on a train

Getting to know them better

Is like opening an unexpected letter.

I can't tell whether that's Graham or Bri.

Who do you think it is?

-It's Graham.

-It's Graham?

-Oh, no, it's not, it's Brian.

No, it isn't, it's Brian, because he's got a deer stalker.

Oh, has he?

In here is a steady hush

And a shush

That carries her back to the songs she sang

When she was young

She floats and rocks

And someone talks out of the past

The hum of the train

Becomes the voice of her mother

Then deepens to be the voice of her lover

So she dreams him back in the jacket she liked

To share half a sandwich

Tea with milk and one sugar

His arm brushing hers

And then he will tell her he once went to Ecclefechan

Before he met her

The presence of him

Is the whoosh of wheels

And she is glad he came back

For a while, for a while

In her sleep, she smiles

The train is a memory-keeper

It carries something alive, like the words in a letter

Not gathering dust, but held in trust

Because this is how love moves on

And survives

In the window, her life looks back at the man on the phone

And reflects his own

The future comes in and puts down its bags.

'I'm 60 next year. I've got the option of retiring.

'Oh, I keep saying that I will do, but I don't think I will.

'I think... The Rolling Stones, you just don't stop.

'If I retire, you know,

'sometimes I think, "What am I going to do?"

'Working on the trains, working for Virgin,

'it's like being married,

'from what I can remember.

'You love it sometimes and you absolutely hate it others.

'But when it's gone...

'..you'll miss it.'

May I see your tickets, ladies, please?

-Oh.

-They're fabulous!

-That's me when I got married.

-Is that you?

CONDUCTOR GASPS

Oh, how beautiful.

-Yeah, and that...

-There's nothing like having a big one, is there?

THEY LAUGH

-Is your husband still with us?

-No.

-No, neither of us.

-Aww.

'Well, she's coped better than I would have thought

'and in a way, I think Hazel, she gets more determined on things now,

'which is great.'

-How old were you there?

-My daughter said, "Look at you, posing!"

-Got to pose for a photo.

-Well, yes. 21.

-21.

And I'd just got engaged to Brian, that's what that was.

'Her husband just used to run everything

'and I think she's sort of quite realising

'that she's got some control over her life and what she does.'

That's my sister at my wedding.

-Wow!

-Can you recognise her?

Now I've seen this one, I can.

Down the carriage, a clicking and pecking at keyboards

Half-heard, half-knowing, tossed away in the coming and going

Like all the other used-up things

The cardboard wrap, the cellophane

The paper napkins, time pass

Stifled yawn.

OK, thank you.

Thank you.

Rubbish, rubbish, please.

All right, thanks for that, dear. Thank you.

All right.

'I tell you the best thing I like about doing my job.

'It makes me be an independent person.

'That is number one.'

Rubbish, rubbish, please. Any?

'If you go into the pub and a man says, "I'll buy you a drink,"

'you can buy him a drink.'

Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

'It wouldn't maintain me with a house and a car,

'so I don't bother with the car!

'I leave that alone!'

Thank you. Thank you very much.

OK.

'We're quite happy. We're quite happy with that.'

The rubbish collector gathers it in

Stopping for breath in the vestibule

His back to the door, feeling the change in the sound

The different drumming, the slip and shiver

Of in-between and far below

The long embrace of wheel and rail

Over the Clyde, where the great ships were born

Over the water, a ghostly foghorn

Over the bridge to the city they come.

-ANNOUNCEMENT:

-Service now approaching our final stop.

This is Glasgow Central.

Some of them visiting, some returning

They take up their baggage and their belongings

They take up their longings

And the train brings them in to Glasgow Central

The tall windows, the glass bridge

The Hielanman's Umbrella, lit to gather them in.

-We are at the platform, I think.

-Are we?

Well, it'll be on that side.

SHE CHUCKLES

Oh, yes, there are our bags.

As if someone has waited for them too long

As if they are love letters delivered home.

BEEPING

I'm desperate for a wee.

All gone

The present is another country

Where the cleaners in their different accents

Check beneath the seats

And haul a tonne of bagged-up rubbish from the vestibules

All glance at headlines in discarded papers

Turned into history

Meanwhile, the train is emptied of itself

And will retire to sleep

Forgetting everything it's seen and carried

On this day

Like a thousand days that all seemed so important at the time

Suppose a train could dream...

First division, coming over.

-And again, Bill!

-Harry, second division!

What might it see?

Eight carriages, perhaps?

The empty vehicle flying home to nowhere, all alone...

TRAIN WHISTLE HOOTS

Meanwhile, the travellers disperse along a thousand streets

Into their lives, their names and obligations

And in an hour, or a day

This journey will become as if it never was

Until once more we find ourselves aboard

Accelerating as by magic

Gone!

Till then, farewell, be lucky...

CARRIAGES CLATTER Oh, listen!

That's a train.

MUSIC: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) by The Cleverlys

# All the single ladies, all the single ladies

# All the single ladies, all the single ladies

# All the single ladies, all the single ladies

# If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it

# If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it

# Don't be mad once you see that he want it

# If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it

# Whoa-whoa oh-oh-oh-oh

# Whoa-whoa oh-oh-oh-oh

# Whoa-whoa oh-oh-oh-oh

# Whoa-whoa oh-oh-oh-oh. #