It was unlike

any conversation

I had under-

took with a

train guard before,

normally the

discourse was

limited to

the duty bound

and the sent-

iment of

tickets please

with gruffness

and dampening spirit

between stat-

ions and stares….

 

This though was illuminating and joyful,

as the young man known as Crispy Baghands

from Blackpool told me of his story

and how he had joined the post of sentry on parade

of Britain’s railways, Beeching’s great and terrible crime

against the British people, and how as a young lad

he had loved English literature.

Not much use for it on the railway I mused,

unless a particularly weird bloke in an old battered tartan

wants you read aloud the stations that crowd the line

between Inverness and Edinburgh.

“No, I guess”, he muttered but with a broad smile

I did leave school

though with two B’s in Literature and Language

and I realised at the point as the train pulled away from the next station…

 

that no won-

der the pop-

ulation

of the scu-

rrying pol-

len collect-

ors had dwind-

led if und-

er previous

school reforms

they were able

to take Bees

as prized gifts

for doing well

home with them.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015