It started as a fairly pleasant train journey. A woman with a half-shaved head and multiple tattoos got on pulling a French bulldog on a lead. We got to talking about dogs, and breeds, and whether Staffordshire Bull Terriers had an unearned bad reputation, and about her cats too, and was she a dog or a cat person? She said she was both, and I agreed it was hard to choose, and soon we were swapping pictures of our cats and discussing different Norfolk villages, and was Swaffham a nice place did she think or not? Both of us, I suspect, enjoyed connecting on the topic of animals with someone so unlike ourselves. In fact, we were chattering away so cordially that we didn’t notice that 15 minutes had gone by and our train – usually punctual – was seriously late leaving the station.
Presumably, he had sudden nightmare visions of a tribunal, a re-education course or disastrous PR for his rail network
It was soon clear why.
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