Saturday.

Today we went to London by train to view the Roger Walker collection at Christies. We bought day return tickets (senior citizens) together with underground tickets. We had a very pleasant day indeed (grandson Matthew met us at Christies), until our return journey. We went to South Kensington Underground Station which was crowded as all the gates were closed and no one was being allowed on the platforms. The tannoy system squawked occasionally but things were so noisy that nobody could hear what the problem was. Eventually we walked across to Hyde Park where Matthew caught a 'bus home, and we took a taxi to Liverpool Street Station. We were just in time to catch a train stopping at Manningtree. The train was fairly full but not crowded, and we got seats near each other. All went well until the ticket collector came along. He scrutinised my ticket very carefully but eventually punched it. He then looked at the ticket produced by the young lady next to me in the window seat, and told her that it wasn't a ticket for this train. "Oh dear" says the obviously worried girl, "aren't we going to Stowmarket?" "Oh yes," says the guard " but this is a ticket for the 18.24 train, and you are on the 17.32 train to Stowmarket, and I shall have to charge you the London to Stowmarket fare". This turned out to be £32. The young lady, by now in tears, opened her wallet, which contained £30. To cut a long story short, Ann and I both chipped in together to produce the odd £2 and made sure that the girl was being met at Stowmarket, as she now had no money on her. The story doesn't end there. The guard then went to the couple occupying the two seats on the other side of the gangway. They had bought their tickets on line, and had then caught a slightly earlier train to Norwich, than that which the ticket specified. They were both under the impression that a ticket entitled them to travel to Norwich on any train that day. The girl said that they would get off at Colchester and wait for the train they should have travelled on. The guard said that he would then have to charge them for their ride from London to Colchester on this train. In the end they paid him over £90 to stay on board to Norwich. That meant that British Rail had conned an extra £120 from the three young people by not making the rules at all clear to them. I would be interested to know how much extra is being made by the railway authorities regularly using this rapacious, dishonest, and mean little racket ? I advise everybody travelling by rail, and buying their tickets 'on line' to read the small print very carefully.

Goodnight all.