Forgettably Happy

Forgettably happy

Saraswati Park:

“Aha, thought Ashish: only people who've had truly happy childhoods can afford to forget about them.”

I'm not entirely sure whether my childhood memories are few because it was so happy, or merely because it was so long ago.

One early memory is bumbling into infants school, babbling on in the Polish / English mixture that worked so well at home and with family (Poglish?) and having to come to terms with the fact that no-one understood a word I was saying. At that point my lot decided I was too dim to do any sort of linguistic multi-tasking and agreed to speak exclusively in English, at least when I was around.

About that time having a car was rare. On any given street there would be a smattering of cars. Most had drivers' doors that opened backwards, with the hinges towards the rear and the handles towards the front. They were all black. One of the ones down our road caught fire. I slept through the commotion, but was part of the crowd gathered around the next day gazing in wonder at the charred and blackened seats and the puddles of dirty water the fire brigade had left behind.

Thirty-odd years later I would be in the London Fire Brigade, stationed at one of the three London car fire epicentres, where we had of necessity become so slick at arrive, extinguish, make safe, depart, that there was hardly a gap between the status X (we've arrived) and the status Y (it's out, send us somewhere else if you want) radio messages. Every household had a car for everyone old enough to drive. These were routinely stolen, driven and torched. It was always more frequent during the school holidays, and in the summer months.

After we moved out to Kent my dad spent a few years commuting first to Woolwich and then to Croydon. On a scooter. I think crash helmets were optional then, but I think he had one, albeit probably some army surplus shop job that would have provided minimal protection. Luckily it was never called into action.

Trains

We were talking last night about the trains. I don't miss them one little bit.

This is prehistoric and such bad customer service: office desk, fifteen minutes from station. Check Internet. No service disruptions reported. Walk to Cannon Street. Platform heaving. No trains moving. Announcement: “please wait on the station concourse for further announcements”. That is: “put your life on hold, watch the precious time tick by, because we're too lazy, inefficient, and too busy making obscene profits to bother giving decent information out, so that you can go back to work, or have a coffee somewhere, or at least go to Waterstones and browse the books.”

Absolute rubbish at low cost. Inexcusable when you're paying through the nose. For the umteenth straight year theres an above inflation fare increase. How is that justified?

Saturday, I checked costs. Four of us, in the car, door to door, half a tank of petrol at most and some parking, £35 tops. Train? £65 + parking at the station + more chance of things going wrong + the frequent and hidden weekend planned maintenance coach 'replacement' service between x and y. Car wins. How does that fit with any green agenda?