During the peak weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, I undertook a daily walk in order to maintain my dire levels of fitness at a level slightly above death. My levels of motivation at record low levels, a one mile walk at a near glacial pace was, to me at least, a great achievement. I looked with envy at others on social networks who ran, walked and cycled miles and then made sure they told me how great and fit they were; thus earning a 28 day mute from me. On a sunny day in April, I was stopped by police officers who were concerned I might be about to kill myself.
In an effort to avoid seeing anyone at all, never mind someone I actually know, my walk would usually take me to the outdoor first floor car park at Bristol Parkway station. From there, at a slight stretch, I would watch the trains go by, something I have been doing at various locations since the 1960s. First they asked me if I was all right. My loyal reader will know that I am seldom all right in the true sense of the words but I cheerfully replied that I was doing just fine, thank you very much. Why ask? It turned out, they had been watching me via the CCTV and were concerned my motives for being there were more sinister than merely watching trains, not even taking their numbers. I was a little shocked, I can tell you.
God alone knows what they saw on their TV screens. I don’t remember climbing anything, although I did stretch a little across the railings – and what’s coming is pitifully sad – in order to get a better view of the pantograph of the Hitachi train which had just arrived from London Paddington. I certainly didn’t try to put the officers at ease by explaining my stretching activities because, I feared, they might call for the men in their white coats to cart me away to the funny farm. I mumbled something about how I like to see the trains go by. As a man of a certain (old) age, this felt faintly ridiculous. If I had been the spotty, birth-marked me of 1970, watching the diesels thundering through St Annes Station (deceased) for hour upon hour, it would have sounded reasonably normal. Somehow, this felt a bit sad. Still, they must have been satisfied by my very sad explanation as they wandered back to the station proper to deal with real crime. Thinking about it later, I had nothing but admiration for the police officers because for all they knew I was about to throw myself at the tracks via overhead wires containing 25k volts. That wouldn’t have been nice to watch.
Back in the day, as a young 20-something, I became friends with a train driver. One Sunday morning, he took me for a tour at the Inter City 125 depot in Bristol, allowing me to visit the driver’s cab. In terms of excitement, it would have been akin to going out on a date with Natalie Imbruglia. I was in heaven. Until Jim, for it was he, started to tell me about his life as a train driver.
Train drivers, he explained, saw a lot of things from the driver’s cab. Trespass was a real issue (I was too embarrassed to admit that as a child railway trespass was an integral part of my life) and so was suicide. On two occasions, he had been driving at high speed when he suddenly saw a figure on the tracks. On one, he saw the figure as the train emerged from a tunnel before he could react. On another, he saw the figure in the middle distance but these high speed trains take some stopping and Jim estimated he was still doing around 80 MPH when he felt the thump of train on human body. You would feel a loud thud when a bird got in the way of a train. A human being was worse than a thud. Jim never saw the whites of the eyes of the victims, but some of his colleagues did and they never forgot it. One driver struck a man on the tracks and when he arrived at the next station there was a human head on the buffer. He never drove again. Which brings me back to me.
I have never crossed the line between wishing it was all over and actually doing something to make it come about. I’ve often stood on lonely platforms in the depths of my depression, knowing how quick it would be all over, but always life was the better option. In truth, at my very worst, I stopped going to stations, just like I stopped going to cliff tops.
I’ve been lucky in that there’s always been something worth living for. At least I believed there was and that’s probably the most important thing of all. I’ve known and been friends with others who didn’t think there was anything worth living for. I hope if I ever reach that stage I’ll spot the signs and do something about it.
