Priority seats, sounds like a bourgeoisie booking, but no, priority need is more accurate.

Funny thing this piece conjured up so many memories/thoughts that prompted comparisons. Priority seating was one of them, I remember a time when social expectation was for those seats and their meaning to be immaculately observed, it would be a hugely controversial thing to see a green mohican sporting punk in them when an elderly passenger stepped off the platform, dunno why that conjures a sigh so much.

All life is to be found on the train platform, no status or title means a thing when the jostling begins. The sheer speed and movement of the underground shocked me when I first travelled to the big smoke as a Northern youngster, when I returned many years later as an adult, it was equally daunting to me.

So vibrant though, it really piqued my curiosity, I guess it still does, although I haven't fancied visiting in many a year.

I remember at the height of 'the troubles' as we euphemistically call them nowadays, I caused quite a scene in Oxford street Woolworths. The date was 29th July 1981, my first ever visit to the capital, I travelled overnight. My wonderful, caring, cherished and deeply missed Nana Martha took me. I remember the date so well as it was Charles and Diana's wedding day.

I was looking at the amazing shelves of the biggest store I had ever seen (I was 8) oh-so-many toys! I was carrying my luggage still, which was in the tiniest vanity case you have ever seen (don't judge, I knew no better!) I put the case down on the ground and absent-mindedly walked in to the next aisle, following my Nana. not wanting to get parted in such a strange place, a store the size of a city.

Next thing the police were yelling, "Everybody out... Out now!".

My Nana quickly explained that on the day of a royal wedding, in London, bomb threats and alerts would be extremely high. Next she asked me where my case was...

Suffice to say I wasn't thrown in the tower and could laugh about it by the mid 90's!!!

All of this, I guess, is to say, isn't it strange what can be evoked from reading the words and thoughts and experiences of another here. Thank YOU for the chance to think of my first visit to a city, our capital, no less and I am always delighted to have chance to think of my Nana Martha coincidentally, my best friend, weird though that may sound to some. She was with us till 2008, I count myself so, so lucky as I would not have escaped childhood alive, but for her.

Oh I should mention that she trolled that little wide eyed, naive 8 year old by telling me she had 2 invites to the wedding and had asked if she could bring me! 😁😏

Not gonna even try the pretence of saying that I intended to exercise brevity... I cannot!