Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low life

A social leper tells you of his miserable existence

issue 14 January 2006

On the second day of the New Year, I rose, dressed, arranged myself on my crutches and hobbled down the road to the station. It was wonderful to be outside again. (Never give credence to ideas that occur to you indoors, said Nietzsche, which I think I’ll take as my New Year’s resolution.) At the station there was a handy ramp up to the ticket office that I’d barely noticed before, then a footbridge over the railway lines to platform two.

At London Bridge station I toppled off the train and stumped through the ticket barrier, down an escalator and along a subway to the Underground station, where I took a Jubilee line train to West Ham, then a District line train to Upton Park. I alighted here with less grace than the word implies, hopped up the stairs to the ticket barriers then propelled myself down Green Street to the Boleyn Ground.

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