The Kindness of strangers

A funny thing happened on the way to work yesterday. I missed my normal trail (0648 Eastleigh – Bournemouth) and I was cursing my luck when it was announced that there was a broken rail at Brockenhurst and that replacement buses were being arranged. Oh great so I’m going to be well late for work. Caught the next train to Southampton, well OK not the next one as it was full, so I caught the one after. It was only 2 mins behind and joined the waiting throng of passengers stood outside Southampton Central waiting for the bus to take us to Brockenhurst where train were running again down Bournemouth and beyond. There must have been 200+ people waiting. Some getting rather annoyed. I just hoped that there was going to be a fleet of buses as we all wouldn’t fit in one vehicle. Train staff came out and said they were looking for the passengers that was on the 0601 service from Southampton. That’s the one an hour before the one I was supposed to be on but missed. People started to mutter about how those people must have been waiting for two hours for a bus. So maybe us later passengers were not so badly off after all and it made no difference at all that I missed the train Or maybe it was a ploy by the train staff… They are good at that sort of thing these days. One way to calm down a group of disgruntled passengers is to point out that there are other passengers who are worse off? Perhaps? I wouldn’t put this past South West Trains to do this. Did you know that research has shown that if the announcement that the train is late is done using a woman’s voice then there are less complaints. Something South West Trains knows all too well and will try to use a woman to announce train delays. Crafty buggers aren’t they.

Anyway there I was at Southampton when I should have, just wondering when a bus was coming. When a elderly gent in Range Rover pulled up. Wound down his window and said to a group of us that he was heading off to Brockenhurst, we any of us like a lift. The guys either side of me jumped in. I jumped in. Then two people, obviously work colleagues, argued about who was going to fill the last place in the car. I’ll wait said one, no said the other , you go on I ‘ll wait.. I insist that you go, I don’t mind and so it went on. All very British. Still one eventually jumped in and off we went to Brockenhurst. Turns out the guy had just brought his wife up to Southampton to save her waiting for the bus and he decided he might as well give a couple of people a lift back to help them out. Very good of him. Really kind. Top man. Makes you have faith in human nature again.

Anyway got to Brockenhurst where the trains were doing a sort of regular shuttle services down to Weymouth, no hint of a timetable.. I arrived at work only 15mins after I would have done if my later train had run. And nobody at work suspected that anything was wrong and that I had such an adventure getting there that morning..