Memorable/Terrifying Train Journeys

 

Maybe my most interesting and terrifying train journey was that taken with my old Beaumont friend John Farr (may he RIP) in about 1970 from London to Istanbul via Munich. Munich itself was still being excavated for constructing a subway but we were able safely to board the train with reserved seats bound for Turkey.

The guards used to  check the wheels' soundness  by hitting the train wheels from time to time with sledge hammers.   After one such check in Greece after a minor earthquake,  the train  was deemed dangerous so  we had to disembark.  Another train was found but without reserved seats. At Bulgaria the engine was switched to a steam train which then headed slowly to Istanbul, About a mile from the terminus people who were living on the tracks had to rise to make way for the train but finally it arrived at our destination.

The next  difficult  journey a few months later was  on a train from Cairo to Luxor. The train was full of prisoners in chains which was unnerving. Going to the WC was difficult as the WCs were taken up with prisoners in chains. On one occasion solders agreed to stand guard whils I pee'd through a gap between carriages. That was hard enough but the experience was made more memorable by the soldiers firing their machine guns through the train roof.

Another memorable journey was what started as a routine commute from London Vauxhall to Wimbledon. I blogged about this at the time: Memorable commuter train journey

A far happier memorable train journey was one which mrs maytrees and I took from London to Aberdeen on the overnight sleeper. This was in many ways matched by our journey years before on the unmodernised sleeper from London to Inverness. See both

Train to Inverness and Train to Aberdeen

The whisky on the Aberdeen journey and  the Haggis enroute to Inverness were both of course also memorable.

Then comes our summer holiday train to St Ives Cornwall where again we had reserved seats. On the return journey to London there were terrific thunder storms in England and the lightening brought most trains to a halt. However the train from Plymouth from which we were bound to London, was not directly affected. Indirectly though, being the sole London bound  train, it soon became packed to overflowing.

All of the HCPT overnight  pilgrim trains  from Bolougne sur mer to Lourdes were  exciting and one or two were terrifying.

The most terrifying was when one night at a remote French railway station where for some reason the train had halted, three men fleeing from the station bar  tried to board. The gendarmerie fired tear gas at the men who were caught. The tear gas cannisters missed the rogues but hit the open window of one of our compartments in which three HCPT Group 35 asthmatics were sleeping. They woke up and  were sick. I protested to the gendarmes but the row  was defused by the train driver who came over and said: moi asthmatic aussi. 

Another exciting HCPT train journey took place during a national French railway strike when a lady HCPT helper  who had been in the resistance during WWII persuaded a union leader who had also been in the French resistance, to drive the train personally to Lourdes.

Overall train travel now seems likely to increase partly as a result of the war in the Middle East.

 

Rasputin

 

                                    

                                Setting off to war - above

Retreat from Moscow by Napoleon's army - below.

The fact that the Russians under the Tsar took the train east,  then marched off to fight the Japanese and were  then defeated probably did not help the Tsar survive the revolution when it came.

Antony Beevor's biography about Rasputin makes for fascinating reading. Coincidentally the biography is  largely set in Russia at about the same time as the Summerfolk play about which I blogged last week. 

In much the same way  as the wealthy Summerfolk by their indulgent behaviour really  helped speed the way to the Russian Revolution so did the behaviour of Rasputin.

Rasputin appears to me to have had part of him who from time to time seemed almost holy yet almost simultaneously appears as a dreadful womaniser rapist and. absurdly friendly with the Tsar Nicolas II and his wife Alexandra, who according to Antony Beevor were besotted with him. 

History was never a strong subject of mine but from what I can fathom, Russia at the time had no constitution and was ruled at the whim of the Tsars. Ordinary people were treated really as serfs.

Interestingly England  still has no written constitution but the Magna Carta signed as long ago as 1215 by King John, successfully divided power and usually kept our monarch in check.

  

The Russian Empire by failing to have an equivalent to our Magna Carta, in my humble opinion, led to their revolution and the slaying of their former Tsar and families, essentially leading to the USSR and then to the Russia of today.

My Summerfolk blogpost is at:

Summerfolk

Summerfolk

 

The National Theatre play Summerfolk  which youngest sister, mrs maytrees and I attended at the Olivier Theatre earlier this week, played to a packed audience and was excellent.

We decided to have lunch at the NT cafe which was inexpensive though perhaps understandably somewhat crowded. The play and lunch were our bithday present to youngest sister who reaches her 70th birthday this month.

Coincidentally I am reading the recently published book Rasputin and the Downfall of  the Romanovs by Antonoy Beever. Both the play and the book are for the most part set in the early 1900s. I will probably make a blog post about the book in a few days time.

Summerfolk was  a long play which rewarded concentration. There was a large cast of some twnty three characters.

An extract from a review of the play in the Radio Times reads:

Gorky's work deals with the preoccupations of the intelligentsia right before the Russian Revolution; affairs, loveless marriages, opinions on lacklustre poetry. At times, we the audience, as a fly on the wall, can see deeper into the darker side of the upper middle class psyche of the time; from the male characters' rampant misogyny to Pyotr's disdain for his own working class origins.

Gorky and the Raine siblings have worked in tandem to create a hilarious and affecting script, stuffed with terrific one-liners and expertly-placed expletives, without shying away from the darker elements.

It's impossible not to draw parallels between Summerfolk's underlying sense of political and social unease and the churning anxiety present in our current world. These eerie similarities mean that this contemporary production speaks to the timelessness of theatre.

Despite being reduced by an hour, Summerfolk still boasts a hefty run-time. While the first half effortlessly flies by, the production begins to show its runtime more in the second half, as repeated arguments lead it to losing a little steam.

An excellent afternoon.

Easter Week 2026

 

The war in Iran was cited as the reason for Israel initially preventing the traditional Palm Sunday mass being celebrated in Jerusalem though  I believe the Israeli government eventually relented somewhat. 

In any event the above picture is of holy mass being celebrated on 2nd April 2026 at the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Earlier, Psalm Sunday mass was celebrated at the Sacred Heart Church in Wimbledon and I attended  the first mass of Psalm Sunday which took place on the Saturday night. There was quite a crowd there and the lengthy passion scripture was read outside, near the main door before we entered the church for the long holy mass.

Iran has professed a wish to extinguish Israel, so the latter country's attacks on Iran are to some extent understandable. Those of the USA on the other hand are in my opinion,  not. I loathed the Iranian government's method of controlling its people  before the current attacks by the USA and Israel, by for example killing at least 30,000 of them for their protest riots. However even then the matter was for the Iranian people  not for foreigners to attempt to resolve.

President Trump's actions remind me of those of King Herod who attempted  unsuccessfully to kill the infant Jesus. Of course President Trump may be suffering from dementia or another kind of illness,and in any case, perhaps the words of the Apostle Luke in chapter 23 verse 34 of the New Testament apply:

Father forgive them for they know not what they do. 

Avebury

Youngest brother J youngest sister S and I decided to a trip to Avebury this week. As the trip would involve a fair deal of walking, J's wife and mrs maytrees decided that this awayday would not be for them.

S traveled to our meeting point at the local pub by train and bus whereas J and I went by car from his house near Guildford. J had visited the site quite recently whereas my previous trip there had been years back enroute probably from holiday in Cornwall.

The car journey to Avebury took about ninety minutes with free parking there for National Trust members. We all met at the Red Lion Pub near to the stone circles and enjoyed a tasty lunch together with a drink or two.

J had selected our walking trip which with small map reading errors, covered about six miles.

Age as well as Covid-19, are making their mark on me at least, but we completed the interesting and enjoyable walk, returning  back to Avebury Village in time for tea and sandwiches at the nearby National Trust tea shop. The  weather by then was warm enough for us to enjoy at a table outside.

 

The journey home was uneventful - a most interesting day away.

 

Wimbledon Village Drinking Fountain

Simon Charles Potter was a year above me at the long since closed Beaumont College. He has many claims to fame since those days, one of which is being a teacher of arts at Wimbledon College since I believe the 1970s. In earlier days he used to travel to the College by a motor cycle and side-car and we occasionally chatted on the road  near the College on Wimbledon's Edge Hill and at an occasional Beaumont Union  meeting or dinner. 

He is also the author of several books and has just written a piece for the parish magazine Edgeways an extract from which reads:

 On Tuesday 10 March, pupils from

Wimbledon College and Ursuline High
School attended the unveiling of the
Hanbury Drinking Fountain on
Wimbledon Village’s High Street, opposite
the Rose and Crown pub.
The ceremony followed a major
restoration led by Heritage of London
Trust, in partnership with Merton Council
and the Wimbledon Society. Over 100
young people in school history clubs,
including those from our parish’s schools,
have been involved with the restoration
through the Proud Places programme.
The Victorian fountain – now conserved,
gilded, and returned to working order –
stands as a striking example of Britain’s
nineteenth-century fascination with Greek
Revival architecture, shaping the country’s
public monuments and civic spaces. 

The fountain was originally presented to
the public as a gift by Robert William
Hanbury, MP and President of the Board
of Agriculture. It first opened in 1860 on
the Strand before being relocated to
Wimbledon Common, near Hanbury’s
home. As part of the restoration, the
fountain has been relocated from the
Common to the bustling High Street to
serve more passers-by.

Probably the relocation of the drinking fountain to the Village from its former site on Wimbledon Common, was assisted by Merton Council recently becoming debt free but that is speculation on my part. 

Portobello Road

The parents of a friend of maytrees min who I met as they were out for a morning stroll, told me that they had recently visited Portobello Road market. Knowing that they did not have easy access to a car I asked them how they had traveled there.

Traveling by London Underground on the Edgeware Road section of the District Line from Wimbledon  to Notting Hill Gate; and from there walking, was their chosen route. As mrs maytrees and I had not visited Portobello Road in the case of mrs maytrees ever, and in my own case, for years we decided 

to travel there a few days later.

Traveling with youngest brother and his wife we arrived at Notting Hill  Gate Underground station in good time and made the walk from there to the market in about 15 minutes. Youngest brother's wife uses fabrics for her chair restoring work so she and mrs maytrees especially enjoyed themselves looking through the fabric stores. 

We traveled on a Friday so as to avoid the large crowds that I gather often attend the street at weekends. However a disadvantage of that was that most of the antiques stores were closed although there was still much to see and explore. 

The Spanish cuisine was reportedly worth savouring. However as it began to pour with rain we opted for an Italian restaurant which we happened to be passing. There I enjoyed some ravioli. though remembering years ago whilst a schoolboy at long since closed Beaumont College (a boarding school) the riots in the school refectory on being served with ravioli for the third time in a week. The ravioli was delicious but rather a small portion in my view though not expensive.

The Spanish food turned out to be available slightly further on though largely at stalls rather than cafes.

As school children tend to crowd streets from about 3:30pm we traveled back to Wimbledon at about 3pm after a very enjoyable away day..