You could get to Aberdeen from Oxford in a day on the train. Bicycle to from Summertown House to Gloucester Green before even the electric milk wagon made its rounds. From there the intercity bus to Kings Cross, London, and onwards to Newcastle. And then the language and scenery changed utterly as you got into Princes Street, Edinburgh.
On the train to London, sleepy eyed commuters, two sitting side by side on each side and these two facing each other across the path of an undescended table in cabins secured by a sliding door. Newspapers were up for protection--it is doubtful that much new was read behind them--and these were unfolded, shaken and crumpled (no self-respecting business man or public servant would dare to handle a tabloid on the train--and when the conductor opened the door to punch your stub, or make you a ticket, no words were exchanged, or eye contact made as the deals were done.
It was assumed that people had ate their breakfasts, so there was no snack trolley--no room in the aisle alongside the cabins anyway--not even for a cuppa.
From London to Edinburgh, things were more civilized. It's not that their was much of a selection on board the train, but W.H. Smith's was open in the train station, and there you could buy Ribena blackcurrent juice and Smith's Shake 'n' Salt Crisps--the one with the little blue sachet of salt in the bag. The idea was to shake the salt in yourself.
Once across the frontier in Edinburgh--and properly "be north Tay" in the trans Tweed--snacks and other transactions were more difficult. I remember being offered a Scotch egg a freshly cut sandwich. I was hoping for a Plowman's Lunch--a little more filling, with Branston Pickle with just enough Indian zip to please the palette.
Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy, where Adam Smith was born, and which boasts it is the home of linoleum, was ever so slightly strange, or maybe because it was the end of the work day in Edinburgh, and commuters were going home. This may have accounted for the way in which he motioned with his umbrella--or maybe it really was a walking stick--that I should remove my brief case from the seat opposite so that he might take it. We never exchanged a word--although I did chance to look over, but he wasn't going for that one--and he got out at Kirkcaldy. A man, as Adam Smith might have cheered, whose virtues were probity and punctuality.
Some time after Montrose the train stopped--it was ahead of schedule, or there was some sort of blockage on the tracks, somewhere in the unseen distance--and in the Summer's heat, with the big sky of the Scottish highlands open wide, we were offered beer (warm, never refrigerated, in cans) from the mail car. It was MacEwan's lager (in the red tin, MacEwan's Export), and it tasted of aluminium and the canal water of Auld Reekie, where it was brewed.
On the train to London, sleepy eyed commuters, two sitting side by side on each side and these two facing each other across the path of an undescended table in cabins secured by a sliding door. Newspapers were up for protection--it is doubtful that much new was read behind them--and these were unfolded, shaken and crumpled (no self-respecting business man or public servant would dare to handle a tabloid on the train--and when the conductor opened the door to punch your stub, or make you a ticket, no words were exchanged, or eye contact made as the deals were done.
It was assumed that people had ate their breakfasts, so there was no snack trolley--no room in the aisle alongside the cabins anyway--not even for a cuppa.
When I finally got to Aberdeen, it was possible to get fish and chips--with the mandatory option of cod or haddock--made by Italian immigrants, who also made ice cream with full daily cream and eggs--they way the government tells you you are not supposed to, but who was going to shut down Margiotta?
And at some point on my walk down Great Western Road looking for my bed and breakfast, I tried bacon and brown sauce sandwiches for the first time, and gained a new appreciation of bread made by a butcher--full of fat, full of salt, and knew all of a sudden why we are told not to buy our bread and meat in the same place. Live and learn. At least the brown sauce was real HP--Houses of Parliament indeed!
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