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Tuesday 7 October 2008

Another Voice

I wish George Eliot or Alan Bennett had been with me in the Ryanair check-in queue

‘It’s nice to ’ave a young man, Janet,’ she continued, ‘you really should, you know.’ Fleetingly Janet’s face betrayed a flash of despair, as if to say: thanks — but I’d love one and it’s not for want of trying.

‘Now where would where we went — [she named a tourist attraction] — be from ’ere?’

‘South, I think; or south-west,’ ventured Janet.

‘Oh don’t tell me about north and south and east and west and them things. If our plane crashed and you was relyin’ on me to lead us to safety we’d be finished, dear. Mind you I do know from television that we should find the rivers and follow them downstream to civilisation.’

I hope they didn’t see me smiling at the thought of the aftermath of a Ryanair crash somewhere over northern France, with my fellow passenger from Doncaster leading us, in Lycra, to civilisation by finding a river and following it downstream. She’d as likely as not have got us to Paris by nightfall.

A friend in prison, whom I visited not long ago, has always had complete recall of conversations overheard, and a talent for Midlands accents. During the visiting hours he kept us laughing until it was time to leave. Illustrating the astonishing ignorance of most of his fellow inmates, he recounted a conversation he had overheard between two fellow prisoners, one of whom (untypically, he said) had looked at the front page of a newspaper.

‘Did you see that ship’s run aground at Blackpool, in storm?’

‘Do ships stop at Blackpool, then? I didn’t think they did.’

‘They don’t. It were wrecked.’

‘Where was it goin’?’

‘Liverpool, I think. It were comin’ from Belfast.’

‘Where’s Belfast?’

‘I don’t rightly know. Ireland, maybe?’

‘Is that in Northern ’emisphere?’

‘Er... I’m not sure. But Liverpool’s in Southern ’emisphere. I’m sure o’ that.’

But back to my Doncaster woman, overheard. We left her planning for the eventuality of a plane crash....

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