The Network Rail Journey

Ah for the days of good old British Rail - you may well be thinking at this point that, this article is going to be an epic boring and sleep-inviting incursion inside the historical memories of the national railway service?

Well... no... I do not ever want to go there. Sorry to any anorak-donned notebook scribblers and camera snoopers, hiding within the confines of railway awnings but, this is my storytime - go get your own limelight.

A long long time ago...

(oh wait, sorry, a little lost in thought there - wrong galaxy!)

Nooo - not that long ago!

I started off staying overnight locally in Dorset with family relatives so that my final destination the next day would not be such a drudgery to endure. I had traveled the days before from halfway across England from my home to the south coastal area.

Wow, these were the days when trains were not jam-packed from carriage to carriage like human sardines. When carriages were half-full, or half-empty, whichever way you want to debate over this sentence. And the last two great remaining items - train tickets were cheap and the trains were... well... let's just say on-time for once. These days there was space to stretch your legs out and each set of seating was compartmentalized, with a separate running aisle on the one side of the train for staff and passengers to walk down. Luggage was safely stored within each compartment, not blocking the aisles as they often do now on modern-day trains.

And no, before anyone asks, I am not going to give you the train index number for the engine I was traveling on...

I was embarking upon my interview for the mental health training hospital course on the south of England coastline, a three-year-long course due to start seven months after this date IF I passed the interview today.

After reaching my destination, and dare I say it, warm, comfortable, and yes on time, it was only a short five-minute walk to the university hospital where my interview was to be carried out. I was pretty nervous, to say the least at that point but, what made me chuckle and was I must say, a bloody big ice-breaker to my nerves... the hospital was missing something?

'lovely. If I pass today, I certainly hope they have finished building it first before I start!'

and my next thought,

'maybe this is some kind of new healthcare system, where flying ambulances simply parachute their patients into the hospital, from the open-top plan!'

Whatever the plan was, I was confronted with what would seem more to be more comfortable out of a 'carry-on' film. I certainly hope the hospital doesn't refuse to pay up for the building work, or there won't be any need for air conditioning.

The rest of the trip up to the education department was less eventful - that floor of the hospital HAD been completed. When we were all ready, signed a form to say we were here... hmm... difficult one that was, we were asked to choose one of three questions to write a minimum 500-word essay on.

Q1. Write about a news item that attracted your interest lately? - and yes at least one bright spark did write an essay on 'The Sun' and 'page 3.' (strange, but, I didn't see him again after that day?)

Q2. Write about your most recent family holiday.

Q3. Just how did you get here today?

Ok so they all seemed pretty normal questions to set your brain free on but, I do still, to this day, think about the young guy who was sat near me, and what had actually attracted him to writing about 'page 3' in 'The Sun' for 500 words or so - go figure!

This was my chance to bore or try to cause a giggle to the person reviewing it within the education department at least...

So off I went, writing for just under 45-minutes about how I had decided to apply for a place on the course. Not locally but just a little under five hours train journey away from home. There were pretty good hospitals in my local area but I wanted a life outside of where I had grown up and gone to school.

I wanted to 'spread my broken wings... learn to live so free'

Courtesy Vevo/YouTube, accessed by author on 07/06/2021.

Rock, Pop genre. Written by Mr Mister (Page, R., George, S., Mastelotto, P.) Lyricist Land, J. and released by RCA label, 1985

Please CLICK this to read another article to give you the reason why I wanted to 'spread my wings,' so far.

For some, still unbeknownst reason, to me now I had chosen to focus on my train journey. I never imagined that one of the three interview panelists may be related in some way or another to trains. So, it actually turned out that one of them was actually married to a railway signaling engineer after all.

It just goes to show as I look back and write upon this day, how you really should at times, free your mind and write about what you really want to (ok, within reason, to the guy who wrote about page 3!)

- I never found out if one of the panelists had really held a dark past as a topless stripper before turning to nurse management... hmm or maybe he did AND that was the reason why he wasn't seen again after that day?

I cannot say with honesty though if I was asked to write about a journey, I would write about the railways again. It is 2021, now 33 years since that day I wrote about my journey for the first time. I would not score any favours with United Kingdom's (UK) national rail network should I write about them today.

In my humble opinion, the worst possible thing that ever hit them was to privatize the UK railways - now they are smelly, cramped, never enough coaches, never on time, frequently go out of service, toilet facilities (well let's NOT go there) and you need to sell your soul to the devil, to afford to buy a travel ticket these days.

Courtesy YouTube, (accessed by author dated 07/06/2021)

Written & sung by Weldon, C.B., (volume 3, 1937-1938) by Document records.

- And I wrote just about that. Not just about how I physically got to my interview venue but, what my reasons for wanting to leave where I had been brought up, had stemmed from. I could not run home every time I had a problem, that it was quicker to work it out and solve it myself. Yes of course the phone was always there but, I was right, the further you loosen the apron strings from home, the quicker you will be to fixing yourself.

And that was what I wrote about on my journey to my interview.

Looking back on that time now I would like to share this experience with you, because, it gives you thought about the fear of an interview. Try to add some humour to wherever you can to your job interview. To spice up any short essay you are asked to write about. Add a style of yourself into what you write about - show any prospective employer that you are fun, light-hearted, and can relax during a stressful moment.

Only then will the 'real you, begin to shine at an interview.

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