If you ever get the chance to travel from Exeter to Penzance by train, you should go for it. If you can afford a journey on this route on a steam train (prohibitively expensive for most of us and as rare as hens’ teeth) then that would be the experience of a lifetime. The route was engineered by Brunel, with scant regard for its difficulties. It’s so breathtakingly beautiful it’s hard to describe.
I am lucky enough to get to travel a relatively short part of it on a regular basis and feel privileged to do the journey. I’ve seen the view from the train in every type of weather from high winds and hard rain, sunshine, mists, grey mizzle and driving snow but as long as you can see out of the window (in the fog that’s not always possible), you can see beauty. I often see egrets in the mud banks in the river estuaries and a host of other lovely sights. Herons, as pictured in this beautiful wooden carving are also commonly seen.
Today though, my journey has been lifted by a chance encounter of the human kind. I was walking towards the station on my way home after another arduous day and noticed a tall, slim, handsome man coming towards me grinning at me from ear to ear. I did a quick check over my shoulder to make sure he was actually smiling at me and not some six foot tall, legs up to armpits, blonde walking along behind me, but no, it was me he was looking at alright. I realised as he got closer it was Tom. A travelling companion and friend from my earliest days at Uni, when we would travel together regularly because we were on the same course (science foundation) so shared a timetable and a journey.
To be honest, I didn’t think he’d ever get a degree. He was wild. He spent his foundation year and his first proper year off his face in one way or another, sometimes legally, other times dubiously. I can remember standing in the rain outside the library on campus persuading him to hand in an unfinished essay that’s deadline was minutes away because what he’d done would get some marks, whereas handing in nothing would result in a big fat 0. He was as white as a ghost, shaking and sweating after what must have been one hell of a night.
Today though, he looked clean, tidy and chilled. He told me that he’d got a First, at which I nearly fainted with shock – it took a supreme effort not to show my amazement. He also said he was working and starting on up a career ladder. Blimey. Talk about a transformation. Somehow I think he will be one of life’s golden children. A person who makes success look effortless.
For little old me, I was just thrilled that his expression as I walked towards him told me that he was delighted to see me. As DM and I discussed later, it’s more than possible that he looks on me as a grandmother figure, I am, after all, thirty years older than him, but that doesn’t matter. It was just clear that he enjoyed my company. For me, it’s the vindication of the fact that despite feeling like a fish out of water in the early stages of my courses (now three of them) and finding it difficult to make friends in the early days, I CAN form decent friendships with the young adults I encounter and they gain something from their friendships with me. My friendship with Tom was born on the railway and has lasted into its fifth year. That says something.
