Many foundations of UK society just don’t work anymore (Picture: Getty Images)
‘Sorry,’ the woman opposite me on the train said sheepishly.
She was apologising for her son’s cough, so I just replied that her apology really wasn’t necessary. It was two days before Christmas and we were sitting on a packed train from London to Manchester.
My AirPods had run out of battery so we got to chatting and she told me her name – Sandy*. She ended up opening up to me that her son had been struggling for a couple of weeks with that infamous cold that ruined Christmases up and down the country.
She was desperately worried he’d be miserably sick over the festive period. Poor thing.
So I asked: ‘Have you taken him to the doctors?’
Sandy seemed confused by the question. How would she get an appointment? It would surely take weeks.
The way she spoke about GP appointments was like they were some relic of the past – something that existed before Covid-19, no longer available to those whose taxes fund the NHS.
It was at this moment that I realised many of us have accepted that access to healthcare – like many other foundations of UK society – is something that just doesn’t work anymore. Nothing works, and we’ve got used to it.
Travelling by train is the perfect distillation of this virus that has infected British life and I spent the day on them so am able to give a comprehensive diagnosis.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only devastating realisation I had on that journey.
Travelling by train is the perfect distillation of this virus that has infected British life (Picture: Getty Images)
It was on that train that I encountered James*, who was travelling with an almost unfathomable amount of luggage. In his mid-twenties, James worked in London but was going home to the north west of the UK for Christmas.
The reason for the luggage? James didn’t know when he was going to return to live in London because he’d accepted the rental market didn’t work for him.
He had enough of turning up at competitive viewings with other flat hunters all vying for the opportunity to spend 75% of their monthly income on a small flat that the landlord won’t decorate, improve, or clean because they know someone will pay the outrageously high rent anyway.
Finding somewhere to live is another thing we’ve simply accepted doesn’t work.
On that fateful day, I had just dropped off my 11-year-old son with the other side of his family for Christmas up North. I was then going on to my girlfriend’s family home in Gloucestershire so, after wishing Sandy and James a Merry Christmas, I filled the time before my next train by sending a couple of emails from the concourse. Or so I thought.
Finding somewhere to live is another thing we’ve simply accepted doesn’t work (Picture: Getty Images)
The WiFi didn’t work and neither did the ’charging stations’. Obviously.
When I boarded my second train of the day (emails teasingly stuck in my outbox), I was one of the lucky ones. I was wedged into a window seat while others stood in the aisles, not a spare seat or a pathway to the door in sight.
We set off with the conductor announcing it was ‘on time as it stands’ – almost admitting defeat and assuming delay before we’d even departed Manchester.
Anyone who has travelled across the country by train at any point in the last decade will have already guessed that the train was inevitably late, which meant I needed to reassess my convoluted onward journey to my girlfriend’s family home.
I won’t bore you with the details of this, but it involved two more delayed trains, one of which kicked everyone off at the first stop and one that was just ‘delayed’ according to the board at Birmingham New Street. I mean, who needs to know when they’re leaving anyway?
The final leg saw dozens of us pile onto a train that had nowhere near enough carriages, where people were spending their wages to stand in a corridor outside the loo (out of order).
At the same time, the designated first class carriage sat completely empty – and I mean completely empty. That is, until I led a rebellion of other weary travellers into the empty seats.
Still, many of my fellow passengers refused to cross the threshold because they didn’t have the right tickets. Instead, opting to stand in severe discomfort for a premium price.
What does it say about the future of our country if we are all willing just to accept that nothing works properly? (Picture: Sean Allen-Moy)
What is it about Britain that so many of us simply accept travelling like this? What should have been a two-hour journey took five-and-a-half, just ‘because’. For much of the delay there was no explanation.
It costs a bloody fortune and the train companies make a fortune, so why do we just accept them treating us like this?
When I arrived at my destination (after travelling for 11 hours in total for what should have been a 7-hour journey), and enjoyed a few well-deserved drinks, people couldn’t believe the story of my travels.
But as someone who does long train journeys across the UK every couple of months, I feel like I’m becoming immune to this mistreatment.
I just know I won’t get where I want, when I want, I’ll have to pay higher ticket prices than in most other countries, and I’ll be made to feel like the train companies are doing me a massive favour.
What does it say about the future of our country if we are all willing just to accept that nothing works properly? From train times, to housing, and GP appointments, the fact that nothing works in the UK is nothing new. But it’s the quiet acceptance that will be our downfall.
No one dared to sit in the empty first class (Picture: Getty Images)
Richard Carlson’s hit-book Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff tells us we will be free and lighten up if we accept life as it is and if we let go of our expectations. But if we simply accept that the trains won’t run or that our children won’t be able to see a doctor or pay energy bills without going overdrawn, how will things improve?
With the honourable exception of the likes of Greater Manchester’s Mayor, Andy Burnham, I just don’t believe that, despite the best intentions of many of them, our politicians and those in power truly understand the mundane misery of much of British life.
The call centres that don’t answer your calls, the receptionists who give you a cold reception, the systems we pay for that work against us; the delays, the doom and the direct debits.
All of our major parties talk about ‘growth’ and about selling Britain to the world. I challenge them to travel by train, to try and see a doctor or even to get someone in a public-facing role to let them finish a sentence. Then they may feel compelled to make things work.
Things could be better and they should be. Be careful what you’re grateful for.
* Names have been changed.
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