Global Warning

22 November 2008

The other day, the 9.56 bus to the nearest train station was late and the people at the stop — of whom I was by far the youngest — began to grumble a little. Then, looming out of the mist, appeared the driver.

‘I’m sorry, the brakes have failed,’ he said. ‘I’m not prepared to risk your lives and they won’t be repaired until the next bus.’

The next bus — they are all decrepit round here, resuscitated from scrap heaps — was in an hour’s time. Words such as ‘typical’, ‘Third World’, ‘incompetence’ and ‘economic crisis’ ran angrily through my mind.

‘Thanks very much for letting us know,’ said the old ladies at the stop with genuine gratitude at his concern for their lives, and then they went off happily in search of a cup of tea.

This morning the bus was on time. A man in his seventies with crutches stood at the first stop after I had got on. Opening the door, the driver called out to him, ‘We don’t stop here no more. You’ll have to use them sticks to hobble to the next stop.’

Everyone laughed. The man with crutches was a regular. At the next stop, a woman in her sixties with a progressive degenerative neurological condition got on and found her seat in front of me with jerks and stumbles. ‘Don’t mind me, dear,’ she said to me. ‘I’m only dancing.’

An admirable people! Not like those who have replaced them, such as I: querulous and brittle in their self-importance.

1 | 2 Next page