Carlisle to Cardiff... changing trains at Crewe.
A lovely early morning walk to the station finished our explorations of Carlisle. We had enjoyed our visit there. (We have worn the tires out on one of our suitcases with these extended walks to and from railway stations, pulling the suit case behind.) We boarded the train... problem... all the luggage racks are full! We left one case propped up in the space between carriages and settled in our reserved seats. Life was OK, but at each stop more and more people got on the train, many who had not reserved seats. The gap between wagons was full of people standing. The isle in the carriage had people standing. One mum with three children came on and tried to claim her reserved seats. One well dressed business man type simply said, "I'm not moving! I paid for a ticket the same as you." The others in her reserved seats followed his example and did not move at all. Another mum with a young daughter could not sit in her seat because that was the only place to put her large case. She was nearly in tears and making a big fuss. There were arguments, lots of growling and people squeezing past each other vainly searching for seats. I found myself getting angry at some of the behaviour and a bit worried about how we were going to gather our luggage (and what was happening to our case in among the crowd between wagons?) and get off the train when it came to Crewe, where we were to change trains. We decided that we would stand, go and check the safety of our bag and give our seats to the family. We did that and found life more peaceful standing down the other end of the carriage for half an hour, occasionally chatting with others who were standing. We got to Crewe and manage to squeeze our way out to the platform. We had to check where our next train was leaving from and get to that platform within eight minutes. I was rushing down the stairs to that platform with what I thought was a minute to spare (according to the station clock!)....but the train to Cardiff was pulling out! I went to the guard at the station and confirmed it was our train... "Yep you've missed it, another one in an hour." and he wandered off. A woman railway official was much more helpful, she pointed out where the next train we could catch was going and where to wait for it. We sat and had a leisurely lunch. The train duly arrived and we scrambled aboard. It too was packed and of course we did not have reservations on this one. We sat inbetween carriages, for a time perched on our luggage. Jean eventually managed to get a seat, I sat on a fold down seat outside the toilet, instructing patrons how to open the toilet door and chatting with another guy. I enjoyed the trip. It is a bank holiday in the UK this weekend so that has added to the numbers of people traveling.
Racism
On the first train there was a grumpy guard (Who did not show his face when things got crowded) He came through and there was an asian looking family (perhaps Filipino) who had not reserved seats, just as many others hadn't. This guard treated them like dirt, openly grumping at them... and yet the nasty white business man, who also had not reserved a seat, got the nicest treatment. It was a consistent action by this guard and was so obviously racially motivated. When we arrived in Cardiff I was seated outside the station with a couple of young men in the next seat to me. I was disgusted by their comments whenever a person of different colour came past. Thankfully they did not have the guts to say it too loud and most of the people were too intent on getting to where they wanted to go to notice their comments, but it really upset me. Later that night we were seated in a pedestrian shopping area and a guy came along with a few under his belt. An Indian couple sat not far away and he started passing comments. "Leave us alone!" "Piss off, go back home!" "We don't want you here!" and such comments. Thankfully the couple were too engrossed in conversation together to notice that they were being talked at. His tirade was punctuated with spits in their direction. I hope such racism is not common in the UK.
Missed the last bus home.
In the afternoon of our day in Cardiff we decided to catch a bus to St Fagans, the place where the national history museum is located. It is just into the country side inland from Cardiff. We were pleased we did. We checked out the inside exhibits and enjoyed wandering around the whole property which has rebuilt houses, barns, churches which have been dismantled from all around Wales and brought together in the one property. It was really a great display of history, going back to very early times. We finished wandering just as the place was shutting up for the day. We sat on the seat by the bus stop where the bus had delivered us to, confident that it would return at 5:33p.m. to take us back to Cardiff. At around 5:28 we looked again at the timetable and discovered that the bus would not be coming to where we were, but down on the "main road" five minutes walk away. Off we raced, very unsure that we would make it. We came to a fork in the road... "Which one goes to the main road?" We asked a couple of women who pointed us down a long road that went between paddocks.... five minute was going to be long gone. We could hear the roar of traffic that must have been the main road..... we thought. We trudged on, not really worried because surely there would be some bus we could catch back to Cardiff. Just before we came to the road a van came along. The driver said in his welsh accent, "Are you alright?" We explained our plight. He replied, "That's a four carriage motorway you're headed for, y'can't walk on that!" He turned his van around and cleared a space on the back seat. It turned out the two women had given us wrong advise. "I'll take you back." he said. We got to the gatehouse of the museum and he rolled down his window and talked to his colleagues there. They spoke in Welsh! It was delightful. When he had finished with them he said, "There's no more buses through the village, I'll take you to a place you can catch a bus." He took us to an outer suburb of Cardiff, dropped us off and would not take a penny for his trouble. He had gone miles out of his way, he just wished us well and turned around going back to where we had come from. His generosity was truly appreciated.
We successfully caught two trains for our trip to London today. We had reservations in first class carriages, so we had a peaceful journey looking at the countryside. We are now in a hotel in London near the airport going through our stuff to see what we can throw out for our long flight home on Tuesday morning.
Reflection..
There are good and bad people everywhere. ... but most of the time people are good. There are two ways people deal with tension and difficulties within a crowd. Some dig in and look after themselves! e.g. "I'm not moving" ... or the people that will push past you to get on a train while you are trying to get off. Or there are the other people who will say, in a sense, "We're all in this mess together, how can we make it easier on one another?" These we found to be standing at the end of the carriages, laughing and chatting and helping each other to be comfortable. The man with the van just put himself in our position and went out of his way to help. Thank God for good people.
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