To describe the landscape between Birmingham and Wolverhampton as bleak is being a little too kind. It’s an overcast day, but in comparison to the scene on the ground the sky is as bright and radiant as Graham Norton’s wardrobe. If this was the backdrop to a kitchen sink drama you would dismiss it as being too clichéd. It’s all there, flyovers, tower blocks, factories, disused warehouses and not a patch of green in sight. It’s as if someone has got carried away with a credit card and the latest Industrial Landscapes mail order catalogue.
Perhaps fearful of comparisons to the desolate world beyond the glass Virgin Trains have begun to suffer a form of OCD. As we leave Birmingham a member of staff comes down the aisle with a bin liner asking for rubbish like a corporate womble. This continues to happen after every station stop. “Any rubbish? More rubbish?” every quarter of an hour. Presumably Virgin Trains are expecting royalty to join us at Wigan North Western.
At Wolverhampton a family of four join the train with the father leading the way, carrying a large suitcase and urging the others to be “Quick, quick” in a Black Country accent. They’re unwittingly plagiarising a Fast Show sketch with unnerving accuracy. Once seated the youngest child, a girl of around four begins to talk excitedly of nearly being “on holidays“, but she is urged to be quiet by her mum. I only hear the little girl’s side of the conversation which runs along the lines of “Why? …but why? …why-y-y-y?” Within a minute the carriage smells of orange squash and Haribo Starmix and the only sound is the train itself.
The silence doesn’t last, aside from being asked for “more rubbish”, as the train approaches Crewe we’re treated to a burst of music courtesy of a bleached blond lad a few rows behind me. That’s ‘treated’ in much the same way that you’re ‘treated’ to a free ticket to see Jim Davidson or ‘treated’ to a punch in the face. The musical interlude contains just two tracks on repeat; something nondescript by Westlife and one of Cheryl Cole’s dirges. After the third segway it takes a significant effort to resist standing and yelling “OK we get it, you’re gay, now can you turn it down please“.
“We’re in Wigan” announces one of the children in front with the sort of wonderment which is deserving of a much more exotic destination. “We’re in Paris” perhaps or “We’re in Marrakesh”. Unfazed by the surroundings are the mother and teenage daughter sat opposite who have been entrenched in a steady dispute since Warrington Bank Quay. Despite being just five feet away I’ve no idea what the subject is, but it’s following a steady pattern. The mother quietly makes an innocuous comment and the teenager replies with an agitated “I know”, “What?” or “I’m not stupid”.
Still at least it’s not a more varied vocabulary than “Any rubbish?” “More rubbish?” which I swear can still be heard as I head up the platform at Preston.
platform four 