This summer I have travelled close to 5000 miles in the name of storytelling. As I’ve travelled I’ve tried as much as possible to look up from my book, phone or lap top and a remarkable thing has happened; I’ve started talking to people.
I met a graduate with a bicycle, working in a supermarket and preparing to travel and volunteer in Central America whilst struggling with depression and learning difficulties (he told me all this in 25 minutes), a call centre girl who was off to sell the most ornate cards at a fair for Ramadan (she emptied a suitcase of them onto the train floor and her suitcase started rolling around the carriage). We talked for 20 minutes about her business hopes and love life. I met a poet who was travelling back to London. We talked about creativity, work and she confessed to having had an affair (to be clear she wasn’t confiding in me, she’d written about it in a national newspaper). Then there was the octogenarian who’d been bombed out of her Oxford Street home during the Blitz and was now living in Sutton and the cyclist who was returning to Cheshire from Ride London; we talked about cycle infrastructure and children.
Little windows into private people’s lives or an odd form of speed dating as I doubt I’ll ever see any of them ever again. Why though; why talk to me about anything other than the weather? To tell the truth, I don’t know why they chose to speak to me. I was there, in some cases I spoke to them, maybe I asked the right questions or was it as simple as the fact I seemed interested. I certainly enjoyed what they had to say.
I was struggling to write an ending to this blog and then I was commuting from Preston to London and when we reach Birmingham the world spills onto the train and I’m struggling for a seat. I make my way along the carriage finally finding one way away from my bag and I notice a bespectacled man with a grey beard in front of me; its none other than Jeremy Corbyn!
Now whilst I might be interested in hearing people’s stories on trains I was amazed by Mr Corbyn’s calm patience as he dealt with people sticking phones in his face for selfies and actually some pretty disrespectful comments. It seemed to me that he has little choice, even if he wanted to read or listen to music on the train he’s a celebrity and people feel he has to speak to them. I guess that when you make yourself accessible to others you run a risk of being abused or becoming involved in all manner of wackiness (particularly if you are sat next to a stag who is dressed as Robin Hood); that whilst its nice to chat to the person next to you on the train sometimes its also nice to put your headphones in, shelter behind a book and zone out.