Miles Collins

The trials and tribulations of public transport for the wandering chef

Years back whenever, owning a car was nothing more than a pipe dream, (or a malboro in my case-long stopped,incidently) commis chef wages barely covered my drinking habit let alone the cost of a car. Using public transport was the only option and it sucked.

It has been my misfortune to encounter the best and worst of transport in my life and career, I now enjoy the comfort of a particular make of German automobile but that wasn’t always the case. In fact part of the reason I bought the car was to stick two fingers up to the past and to recognise how much my life had improved since those dark days aboard a British Rail train.

Using public transport in Switzerland was, unsurprisingly, brilliant. You felt like a tax dodging millionaire even in economy. Train journeys were a joy, a glass of wine with a crusty roll, some cheese and charcuterie with a permanent backdrop from the Sound of Music to look at. This is the life, I thought, until they refused me a visa.

During my stint in Germany I used public transport a lot. The Herrenberg to Stuttgart train was a favourite, well after I realised not to go on it on a Saturday when all the football fans were on it. I unwittingly went to Stuttgart one day when Leeds United were playing Stuttgart in a European football match. Naturally the Leeds supporters ran riot and managed to upset every man, woman, child, domestic animal etc in their path. I on the other hand managed to board the only train packed to the rafters with upset Stuttgart fans chanting anti-English songs.

That said I used to love going to Stuttgart on the train, it was a day’s escape from the pressures of the kitchen and at the end of the journey I would always head for a great juice bar at the station where I could read a copy of yesterday’s Times newspaper and see how badly my local football team were performing. What I probably missed most was the fact that if the train was due to arrive or depart at ten o’clock then it always did, quite unlike the my next experience in England with Cumbria and its penchant for the golden age of steam.

Of all my wanderings nothing got my goat more than the journey to and from my home town of Grimsby to the Lake District, from the east coast of England to the North West, three and a half hours in a car, six to eight on a train. Work that out. My record was one quick dash back before Christmas, two days off to take presents home and see the family. I took the twelve o’ clock Windermere to Oxenholme, change at Preston then Newark and arrive in Grimsby around six, have a shower and in the pub by seven. Oh no. The Oxenholme train was delayed because of a cow on the tracks, that meant I missed the Glasgow express at Preston, that meant I had to go to Birmingham and that meant another train to Nottingham to get to Newark. I arrived at Newark at eight o’clock to find the train to Grimsby had broken down. During a two week stretch at work without a day off the only thing that kept me going was the thought of a few beers with the lads, seeing this prospect slowly flush down the toilet that was British Rail I launched a tirade against the rudest, most unhelpful specimen of a BR employee. I felt better, until I had to get a bus from Newark to Lincoln via every two house village in the county. Several cans of warm beer and two meat pies later and I was back on another train for Grimsby. It took ten and a half hours. Longer than it took me to get to Germany!

Carrying all of your wordly posessions on a train is no joke, I used to take a suitcase, large sportsbag, portable CD player, fishing gear and a large knife box on regular trips across the country. You can imagine the noise I made one January morning when I slipped on some ice outside Windermere station ending up flat on my back covered in pallete knives, fish tweezers and a Japanese mandolin designed for serial killers. 

I would often have to work in the morning before going home, this used to be very stressful, if I didn’t get the two o’clock to Oxenholme then I wasn’t going anywhere. We used to be packed to the rafters with conference lunches so I used to have to start early just to get a shower before dashing to the station. My Head Chef’s favourite joke was to order sixteen whole salmon to be delivered every time I was due to go home. This meant I had the job of gutting, scaling, filleting, pin boning and skinning them all, if I was off he would buy them ready filleted. You can imagine how I smelt getting on a train after that lot, I never struggled getting a seat though!

The lifts at the stations rarely worked so navigating the thirty nine steps whilst looking (and smelling) like an Himalayan mountain goat with four minutes to make your connection taught me a valuable lesson-buy a car.