One side of the hostel overlooked Waterloo station’s 22 platforms. Trains departed and arrived at the rate of two or three a minute. Another side abutted a Victorian cast-iron girder bridge over which suburban trains arrived and departed with rolling thunder, to which was added that fingernails-dragged-down-a-blackboard, pigs-screaming-at-feeding-time, metal-on-metal noise as the trains negotiated a bend whose curve was at the very limit of what was geometrically feasible for fixed, in-line bogies. On the remaining side of this discordant triangle was an arterial road hazy with diesel particulate through which heavy traffic accelerated and braked between traffic lights.
I arrived here mid-morning after a Spectator party wanting only to lie down and die. The young guy who checked me in was insane with friendliness. He led me upstairs to a dormitory and showed me top bunk U. He watched me climb with some difficulty up the metal frame until I had safely swung my leg over the top bar, then he wished me a pleasant day and departed.
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