Getting on at King’s Cross, I was immediately drawn to an older gentleman with a big white beard perched on one of those cushioned ledges, intently studying the floor of the carriage. Somehow I just knew he would be up for having a chat.
Some people treat you suspiciously when you start talking to them but I didn’t get a hint of that with him and it wasn’t awkward, despite him banging his head on the wall after a couple of sentences. Older people are often more open to chatting, I find. Although he was at least in his 70s, he had a spritely glint in his eye and later told me that his job kept him “out of mischief.” His beard was impressively white, sticking out in all directions. As we talked I noticed he also had a few prominent hairs growing on the top of his nose.
He was going into central London for a meeting with his acting agency. What kind of acting? I asked. “TV and film, I don’t like the theatre because it’s too time consuming,” he said. Stupidly, I didn’t ask what he’d been in, but it seemed like it would’ve been the wrong thing to say somehow, a little rude.
I could tell from his accent that he was a Yorkshireman, Bradford it turned out, but now he lived in the Midlands. “I love coming here though, it’s an experience travelling around on these tubes, isn’t it?”
I’ll see you on TV then shall I? I asked as we reached his stop. “You might do,” he said waggling his eyebrows mischievously. Just as the doors opened, he turned round and pointed at me from the hip with both hands. “Rave it up… ciao!” and with that was gone.
On the return journey, I sat down next to a neat-looking girl with long ginger hair, about my age, and struck up a conversation. As I’ve written before, it’s often a little awkward starting tube conversations with younger women, because either they think that I’m hitting on them, or I’m worried that they’ll think that I’m hitting on them, but this was fine and she was happy to chat and laugh.
Perhaps it’s because she was new to the city, having moved from Germany a month ago to do a PhD in neuroscience. “I was actually studying psychology, but now I’m looking at how the motor areas of the brain work.” I gave her a bit of a blank look. “We are basically holding a magnet to the head and so we can move the hand. It’s really interesting.” Sounds a little scary too, I added, a black and white clip of Frankenstein playing in my head.
She told me a bit more about the experiment and it became apparent that she was actually “a subject,” having this done to herself. “Yeah, I have to be.” What does it feel like? “You don’t feel anything. It’s strange.”
We reached her stop, said a pleasant goodbye, and she went off to experiment on brains. The tube, like London, is full of such different people doing a weird and wonderful range of different things. You never know who you’re going to meet.
It’s been a while, and I haven’t spoken to anyone on the tube since – let me check – mid-December. I’d forgotten how difficult it is to make that initial approach. I tried to talk to a few people yesterday for about an hour, but only really spoke to one person and that wasn’t that interesting. Today though, I set off with some more determination. While I’ve had some time off from doing this I’ve given some thought to how I can do it a bit differently.
As part of this, I’m travelling up and down lines, like I did for the BBC radio thing (coming soon), and picking the best or most interesting encounter. I find that really hard because to be honest I think they’re all interesting in their way, but a bit of editorial control will probably improve the ones I do write up. Therefore sadly I’ll have to leave out the big Jamaican underground worker, the twitchily nervous union rep and the suspicious but curious education professional and get on with it.
I sat down next to a stout gentleman in his thirties wearing jeans and a green coat and immediately started chatting. He responded well and was quick to start asking questions. He told me he had to go do his tax return this afternoon. Oh, what do you do? I asked. “I’m a vicar.” A vicar? Really? And you have to do a tax return? “Yeah, we’re technically self-employed.” Well, you learn something every day, don’t you?
I can’t say I’d ever given much consideration to the employment status of the clergy, I said, finding my eyes flickering to his throat to see if he was wearing a collar (he wasn’t). “You wouldn’t know you’re self-employed because everything comes from this centralized body and you get paid every month.” I had to work hard to supress any jokes about that ‘centralized body’ in fact being God. I’m not religious, so I stayed away from that, but I was still curious about what he did.
What’s it like being a vicar? I asked, rather bluntly. “Um, I love it,” he said, in a somewhat subdued way. “I’m busy and it’s full on. Most people are working in the day so there’s a lot of admin and visiting old and ill people and then in the evening you’re getting people ready for baptisms and weddings.”
I asked what he spent most of his time doing. “Well at the moment quite a lot of fundraising. It’s an old church and needs renovating to the tune of about a million quid.” I whistled. That must be difficult to get hold of at the moment. “Tricky, tricky but not impossible. It’s just a matter of persuading the right people that they want to give it to us. Also a lot of visiting people. I’m fairly new in the post so there’s a lot of that and coming up with the strategy for the next five years or so.”
We talked about London and how we felt about it. “I think a lot of people say they love it…when they’re not in it. It’s a tough city, everyone’s very anonymous.” Would you say it’s a friendly city? I asked. There was a long pause, and I could tell he was trying not to be too negative. “Not really, I wouldn’t,” he admitted. “It can be. It’s unpredictable really. No one talks to you.” We both grinned.
He asked me about where I lived, where I’d been and what my plans were for the future. He was clearly very comfortable in this kind of situation, which I suppose is important for a vicar. This let me get onto my theme for the day, did he have any new years’ resolutions? “Not really, I’m not a very new year person.” He said he felt overwhelmed when trying to think about what he wanted from the year and always ended up with a feeling of “Oh, where do I start?” I never imagined vicars as leading busy or even hectic lives, but it seemed he had the same problems as everyone else in that respect.
No one I spoke to actually had any new years’ resolutions, or at least none they’d admit to. When I pushed the big Jamaican underground worker, asking where he saw himself on 1st January 2013, his answer was simply “rich and not doing this anymore” but in fairness he had just finished a shift and I know that feeling.
The vicar, talking about his plans for the future of his parish, did say that he had a vision for what he wanted “the whole thing” to be in four years or so. “The building to be restored and for it to be used seven days a week, not just for church things. When it was built it was the focal point of the community and it’s lost that, although geographically it still is.”
“There’s a lot of wealth in the area, some houses worth around 20-30 million but there’s quite a big social housing contingent. There’s not very much in the middle.” Earlier, I’d asked him what he meant by strategy and, as well as building use, he’d mentioned outreach. Do you see part of your role as being a bridge between those two sections of the community? I wondered. “Yeah I think to at least engage with them, and try and get them to engage with each other, but it’s quite a big ask really.”
We had reached his stop and he got up, shook my hand and then asked my name and told me his. I realised that through all this time I’ve been talking to people and all the things they’ve told me, I’ve never once found out one of their names before.
I’d been out for a couple of after-work drinks with a friend in Westminster, and was heading home on the District Line. I sat down next to a bored-looking young woman reading a book. I wasn’t sure whether I should disturb her, but she did look bored and a couple of pints had given me a bit of courage.
Good book? I asked. “No, not really, it’s pretty depressing,” she said, dropping the book onto her knees and smiling. Right call then. She was instantly engaged and pleased to be distracted, with a fairly broad ‘estuary’ accent. What’s it about? I asked. “It’s about a psychologist who gets depressed.” I peered at the cover: ‘Undercurrents: a life beneath the surface’. It didn’t look like a barrel of laughs.
She explained that she studied psychology hence her interest. So you wouldn’t recommend it? “No, probably not,” she said, “it’s not really light reading. It’s a true story; she gets depression and then gets electro-shock therapy. It’s quite intense. I hope it’s not a common thing for psychologists,” she frowned with faux-dramatic concern that made me laugh.
We chatted comfortably for a while about her degree, my job and where we were from. “I live in Essex,” she told me. Ah, you have a reputation! I joked. “Oh it’s not that bad, I like it there. It’s lovely, it’s lovely,” she insisted. I don’t think I’ve ever been, I said. “You should, it’s very nice, there’s Epping Forest, lovely countryside, you can go for bike rides…” She said she’d never lived anywhere other than around London, but would like to before she finished her degree and presumably embarked on her career proper.
At the moment she worked as a personal trainer in Westminster. How’s that? I asked. “It’s alright, I quite like it.” Are you there clapping businessmen on or…? “I’m not really a happy-clappy kind of person,” she said, seriously. You’re more of an enforcer? I laughed because she didn’t seem like it. “No, no, I sort of quietly frown at them if they’re not working hard enough.”
Who do you train? I wondered. “Well it’s a luxury apartment block just around the corner from Westminster Abbey so there’s a few MPs and stuff.” Sounds like a good job, does it pay well? She explained that it hourly rate was “not much, nothing” but she made more from personal sessions which she negotiated herself. In hindsight, I wish I’d asked her about any famous clients she’d had and Westminster gossip, but I was tired and when you’re having a nice conversation you don’t really think about going in for the scoop all the time.
We carried on chatting – I think this must have been one of the longest conversations I’ve had – with the odd silence punctuating the flow, but not awkwardly so, as the train zipped along, its lights flickering off occasionally (I wonder why they do that?).
I realised we were coming up to my stop and got her to give me a quick final summary of her book before I got off, having run out of small talk and not having time to get into anything bigger. “It’s not very exciting. She gets depressed, she’s quite miserable and she gets electric-shock therapy and she gets better.” Is there a happy ending? “Well so far, I think she might be about to find God though which is a bit…” she wrinkled her nose and we both laughed and parted ways smiling.
It had been cold and foggy outside so getting on the train, everyone was still wearing thick winter coats and scarves. I had a big empty suitcase with me which I parked in a doorway and sat in between two men, one of whom shifted to let me sit down but was engrossed in a game on his phone involving moving pipes around the screen. The other guy was wearing a Doctor Who kind of scarf and had a shock of receding curly hair. Two women sat opposite talking in an Eastern European language, looking us over rather disdainfully.
I went for the guy with the scarf. He was quite sullen, gazing straight forward. Good day so far? I asked. “Yeah alright, you?” he responded, his face brightening. I told him I’d just got out of the house. “Where are you going?” he nodded at my suitcase. I told him I was heading up to Sheffield for a night but I was not about to get on to talking about how quick the bloody trains are again, so I quickly asked him back. “Work.” And where’s that?
He worked at a Premier League football club he said, “with young people on the community outreach programme.” Interesting job, I said. “What do you do?” he shot back quietly. I’m just a barman, I said, serving the community in a different sort of way. I often have to have this kind of jokey exchange, swapping little nuggets of information and laughing which I think serves to build up trust between the two of you.
I asked him to tell me more about his job, asking if he did a lot of work in schools. “Yeah we do, we use football to kind of draw people in. It’s about getting to know young people. I do a lot of employability training with them.” So you use football to lure them in and then trap them? “Yeah,” he said, laughing, “It’s one way of drawing them in.” He kept glancing around at stations like he was worried he’d miss his stop if he became too involved in the conversation.
So what are the young people (I noticed him carefully using this phrase so I followed suit) you work with like? Are they difficult? “Well, I’ve done a lot of work in prisons lately,” he said, “and that’s quite tough. I hate it actually, but it’s ultimately quite good.” In prisons? I asked. I was a bit taken aback that a Premier League football club would have an outreach programme in prisons. With kids is an easy one but I would’ve thought working with criminals might be a bit too spiky for them. I didn’t say that though.
“Yeah that’s probably where I find it most rewarding.” He didn’t quite sound sure about this and I wondered if he was trying to convince me or himself. “It’s quite hard for me because I come from a middle class background and I find it difficult to relate to some of those young people because they don’t have that background that I’ve had, like I’ve got parents that are still together. So it is difficult.”
I suppose we’re all the same at the end of the day though, I said, thinking about how I would approach a situation like that. He seemed a bit quiet, I would have expected it required a certain level of loudness and force. Maybe he had the seriousness to pull it off. “Yeah, there are other people who I work alongside and they’ve been that person on the estate, they’re the ones who go out and find people and be the first point of contact. Increasingly I’m going out more to meet people first of all. I’ve been working there for six years now.”
“Well, this is me, have a good time in Sheffield,” he said suddenly, seemingly quite surprised to be at his stop, and got off.
“I’m actually going to see a friend being knighted,” said the suited guy opposite on the District Line’s more sociable seating. He looked every inch the city worker he turned out to be: pinstripe suit, pink shirt with cufflinks, but quite young with slightly red cheeks and tousled hair. He certainly looked pretty posh, he had ‘rugby captain’ written all over him, but I wasn’t expecting that.
Being knighted? By the Queen? “Well, she’s in Australia at the moment so he’ll be going to see her in the next few months but I’m off to the Royal Palaces of Justice now which will be quite fun. Where are you going?” He was comfortable talking and was very polite, seeming genuinely interested.
Nowhere that interesting, I said. To see a friend, who’s not getting knighted. “It’s a bit of an unusual answer you’re right, you couldn’t have asked anyone with a better response than that.” Who’s responsible for the knighting when the Queen’s not around? “Well that’s what I’m quite intrigued to find out. I’m guessing it’ll be the whole sword and thing like that but… could be Prince William or someone like that.”
Wow, and why is he being knighted? “Well he’s a barrister, one of the Queen’s Councils and he’s written a couple of reports so he’s quite an important chap. He’s actually one of my friends’ fathers and a really nice guy so we’re going to go for a few drinks afterwards.”
Is he going to make you call him sir? “Maybe he will,” he laughed. “No he’s a really nice chap actually, I’d be surprised if he gets like that.” Definitely a rugby captain, no one else can use the word ‘chap’ with such ease.
We talked about titles a little and he told me he’d told the Student Loans Company, to which he was still in debt despite working as an insurance broker in I guess his late 20’s, that he was a Brigadier and they’d never questioned it, beginning all their correspondence ‘Dear Brigadier…’ He asked me about my job and I almost felt like I was the one being ‘interviewed’.
Are you doing anything for Halloween later? I asked, trying to steer the conversation back to him. “We actually did ours on Saturday so probably nothing, maybe a scary film tonight. We watched The Ring last night which was incredibly scary,” he said, looking dead serious, “One of the guys I live with was checking our cupboards every time there was a noise. Anyway, I’ve got to get off, have a good time with your friend.” It’s in the nature of these conversations that they often come to an abrupt end.
Thanks, enjoy the knighting! I called after him.
I leant back to avoid the doors catching my hair (or nose) as they closed on a crowded train. “Nearly got a haircut there,” I said looking sideways at a tall man, about 30, standing to the side in a thick speckled sweater with short stubble. Going anywhere interesting? I asked. “Home,” he said. Is it an interesting home? I asked, smiling. “It’s a fine home yes,” he said laughing. He’d been at work, I guess at some creative kind of thing judging by his trendy, casual attire. “Quite a long day so… go home, have a couple of beers and play some Pro Evolution soccer.”
We talked briefly about London, comparing it to other places we’d lived. I was only going two stops, so after we’d moved with the crowd into the middle of the carriage, holding onto the overhead rails, I asked him to give me his one recommendation for London before I got off. “If you’re looking for a stroll with a camera,” he said, nodding at the one on my shoulder, “I’d recommend Highgate cemetery. Karl Marx is buried there. And walk round Highgate village, you can take a few pictures there. Go to a few underground bars in Dalston.” I’d heard a lot about Dalston, I told him.
“Try the Pale Blue Door for a night out.” The Pale Blue Door? “Yeah it’s really good, it’s a really good laugh.” Not too pretentious? “No, no it’s incredibly pretentious! You pay 30 quid and you get like a bottle of wine, a bit of dinner, it’s like an art installation with like, a drag queen show.” Sounds interesting! I said, promising to pitch it to my girlfriend. “It’s an artist called Tony Hornecker who does installations and theatre productions for parties, just like trinkets and loads of different stuff, it’s just crackers.” I thanked him, brushing my way out of the train.
Getting on the train at Aldgate East, I was confronted with a woman in her mid- to late-20’s wearing a hi-viz jacket and propping up a bike in the doorway opposite. I wasn’t expecting this, so I sat down and thought about an approach. She was looking at something on her phone so I waited until she looked up and then got up and asked what the rules were about bringing a bike on the tube.
She explained, quite formally like she might work for TfL, that you could bring it on between certain times and on certain lines and that there was a map online. “There are some stations you can’t take it in and out of. But I’ve flouted those rules as well.”
I told her that I wanted to buy a bike. “Most places you can cycle but if you’re doing North to South or East to West it’s quite epic.” She was very well spoken, articulate and confident, I’m guessing public school educated, but not at all snooty and a tad hippyish. I imagine she could have been called Felicity, Flick to her friends.
So any tips for not getting killed on the road? “Be alert. I know quite a few people who have had car doors open in front of them… and be assertive. If you’re coming up to a junction to turn right, just get in the middle. And then develop a hatred for cars,” she joked. As with virtually everyone I’ve spoken to, by now she had relaxed into the conversation and seemed happy to talk.
What about the one way system? Do you stick to it? “Different people do different things. I know some people that strongly believe that if cyclists want respect on the road, they have to respect the rules themselves. I don’t know, each to their own. The good thing about a bike is that you don’t have a number plate so you can get away with it!”
We talked about moving to and living in London and exchanged cycling stories for a while as people came and went around us. “I’m going away for the winter,” she told me. A sensible idea, I said. Anywhere nice? “West Africa so hopefully quite nice yeah… I think we’re going through the Sahara on the way there so that will be pretty cold at night.” You’re going through the Sahara? “Overland yeah.” Oh right, by what methods? I asked, Train? “Hitchhiking, as much as possible,” she said miming with her thumb.
This was something I actually had some experience with. I told her I’d hitchhiked down to Morocco before while at University. “Any advice?” she asked and now it was my turn. Choose your lifts, I told her, if they’re not going exactly where you want then don’t take it, and if you’re not getting lifts where you are, change it up and stand somewhere else.
And with that we reached my stop. Good luck! I said as she manoeuvred her bike out of the way of the doors.
I went to get the Underground home after going to check out the ‘Occupy’ protest outside St Paul’s Cathedral, only to find the next tube scheduled for eight minutes time because of a “defective train.” The announcer reassured the crowded platform over the PA that there would be a train every minute afterwards, but these proved to be too full to make much impact. My companion left to walk to a District Line station, so I caught the eye of a friendly looking guy in a shirt standing next to me on the platform holding his suit jacket.
He told me he was an IT consultant from Blackburn who had just moved for work and we talked for a bit about the tube and how busy it was, a good entry subject. When train after train is going past packed full like that, you realise the sheer volume of people the tube system carries. I think it’s quite amazing but he clearly didn’t.
“The one thing I hate about London,” he said, despite only arriving in here a few days ago, “is the Underground. If I were a millionaire, I’d buy it and scrap it.” He had that manner of speaking where people raise their voice at the end of a sentence, like everything’s a question. What about the congestion? I asked. “I don’t care,” he said, “I’d sell it for scrap metal.”
As we got closer in the ‘queue’ to getting a cramped spot on a train, I told him I’d been at St Paul’s to have a look at the protest and asked what he thought about it. He said he didn’t think it was going to change anything, and contrasted it with the Arab Spring protests. We eventually squeezed on to a crowded train and talked to each other through a strange contortion of limbs, him looking at me sideways over his arm holding the rail above and while my arm holding my coat was trapped behind his back somehow.
“It’s the way the world is,” he said. But does it have to be? That’s the question. “I think while the real people don’t have the power to change it, they’re not going to change it. Money makes the world go round.” Maybe we can distribute it more evenly and change that, I said, leading him a little. “The only thing you can do is try to change things is from the inside.” Ah, but how many millionaires do you think are going to give their money up? “You’ve got to do it from the inside and expose them,” he said confidently enough for me to not consider following up what he meant.
People have commented on this blog that the people I approach must be aware of other people listening in on the conversations, which must make it weird. That’s really not the case, at least for me. Once I’m engaged with someone, I forget all about the other people around me, and it seems to be the same for them too. Maybe it’s because it’s a stranger and a slightly awkward situation, but it feels like it’s just the two of you, or maybe, particularly in this cramped and crowded situation, it’s because the other people aren’t talking and they seem almost cattle-like and unhearing.
Over someone’s shoulder, I saw a picture of Colonel Gaddafi, and asked what he thought of his capture and possible death. “I think it’s all about money,” he said, warming to his theme now, I felt. Libya as well? “Oil. Afghanistan’s about strategic positioning in the Middle East and Iraq’s about the oil. No matter what they say, It’s all about the money… It’s all about money.”
What about that scandal? The Liam Fox one? I wondered, seeing as we were sweeping the news. “Give the right person the right amount of money and they’ll do anything.” I’d like to think I wouldn’t I said, leading to a slightly awkward pause. There’s a fine balance in this kind of conversation between getting opinion, causing offence and keeping people interested, but our chat had been light hearted and we’d both chuckled along despite the subject matter.
So, I asked before I got off, what was his plan to become a millionaire then? “I think I’m gonna have to rob a bank” he said, quick as a flash. “They seem to be doing a lot better than we do. Either that or become a drug dealer.”
I have a bad habit of always rushing between two points as quickly as possible, even when I’m in no hurry at all, so after speed-walking, running up the escalators and taking steps two at a time when changing between the Northern and District Lines at Bank and Monument, I was pretty puffed out.
“You look red, do you have a tan?” this prompted from the Italian hairdresser I sat opposite from, and I spent the 10 or so minutes I talked to him trying to cool down and stop sweating. It was pretty hot down there but I also still get a bit flushed with the embarrassment of approaching strangers.
Hi, how’s your day been? was my opening gambit after walking down the carriage and finding that he was the only person both on their own and without headphones on. “Good. Long,” he said laughing. He had neat hair and what novelty fake moustache sets call a ‘partyboy‘, a neat thin one that runs along the top lip. He quickly (maybe too quickly) asked where I was getting off, but in a friendly manner.
What have you been doing today? I asked, moving across to sit next to him to hear him better. “Working,” he told me that he worked at a salon in central London. I actually cut my own hair, I said truthfully. “You cut that yourselves [sic]?” he asked incredulously. Yeah, what do you think? “It’s not bad!” he laughed, “With clippers no?” No, with scissors, I told him. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed dramatically in his musical, high pitched Italian accent.
I asked if he had any tips for me. “Go to a hairdressers! I’m training for 10 years… for men, 15 years for men and women.” And do you like it? “Yeah I like it very much. I don’t upset people!” I should hope not, I laughed. “Maybe you should try with clippers,” he said, looking at my hair more seriously now, “You have quite a lot of steps at the back actually.”
I was only going a couple of stops but the train was creeping along slowly and we kept talking about hair and my methods of self-pruning for a while, which I’ll spare you.
So what are you doing in London? I asked eventually. “Trying to be happy,” he said after thinking for a second, “and if not then make money.” Good answer. How does it compare to Italy? “I like here, it is better to me [sic] than when I was in Italy. I am completely free…. The relation here with people is, I think, is maybe better…”
This was just getting interesting, and I was about to ask what he meant when we were interrupted by one of those very English service announcements by the driver on the intercom: “Sorry ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been held because of a train coming across the junction ahead, just a train coming across the junction ahead, er, ah that’s actually, we’ve actually got green now so we’re actually on the move now. Thank you.”
Unfortunately, this threw us back to square one and talk about the tube (which he thought was great) and transport differences and so on but I just had time before we reached my stop to ask him what he thought of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s scandal-mired prime minister. “Berlusconi? Oh my God,” he said, rolling his eyes, “Another time! I can’t believe he still being there [sic].”
I couldn’t imagine David Cameron getting away with the same kind of thing I said, getting up to leave and we said goodbye laughing.
[11th October]
I started talking to an Italian from Rome working in an architectural firm (he’d been there for four years and although it was “good because it was stable” he was “very, very much” sick of it) who had come over because “there’s not much job” in Italy, but he got off before we really got going so I turned to the young woman sat on the other side of me.
So far I’ve largely avoided the ‘young woman’ demographic, in large part because I’ve been worried that they’d think I was coming on to them, but I said I’d try and cover all different people on this blog, not just people I feel comfortable with, so I went for it.
This was an awkward conversation, maybe the most awkward I’ve had, partly because the girl was so, so quiet and softly spoken with a really strong African accent that I often had to get her to repeat herself to hear what she was saying. Also, it was 5.30pm by this time, and she was on her way back from work, as was I.
She was from Ghana, and had come here three years ago with her mother and sister. I asked why they had come over, joking about the cold weather. She looked thoughtful but didn’t say anything so I prompted her, for a job or…? “Yeah,” she said, although I got the feeling she would agree with pretty much anything I said.
She worked in a nursing home, caring for old people. What are the old people like? I asked. She thought I’d asked whether she liked it (this kind of misunderstanding happened repeatedly as we talked). Sometimes she was happy and sometimes not she said, it depended on the day. What about the old people? “They’re always happy. I care for them well,” she said, rather sweetly. Some of them must be interesting, I ventured. “Yeah.”
We had to change trains at Mansion House, and I added to the awkwardness by thinking I was staying on the platform, saying goodbye, realising I had to go to the other platform, and rejoining her. So what’s Dagenham like? I persisted. “It’s full of people.” London’s full of people! “It’s full of black people.” Oh, right. Did she like living there? “Yeah.”
So, “yeah”, pretty awkward, but not awful or overly uncomfortable. We talked for about 10 or 15 minutes altogether, I made her laugh a couple of times and we had a less boring time on our way home than we otherwise would. One of the most satisfying aspects of this project so far has been making these tiny connections to other people and getting a little glimpse of their lives that you otherwise would never have. I would probably have never spoken to this girl in any other situation but we both came away having connected a little bit with another person, and that’s a good feeling.
I was walking down the platform at a hot, clammy and crowded Kings Cross with the train ready to go when I saw this guy sticking his head out of a doorway and had to get in that carriage. It took me a few stops to pluck up the courage to actually speak to him though. He was a young-ish, light-skinned, mixed race guy wearing a shiny black Jamaica tracksuit with green and yellow stripes running up the sides with a buttoned up polo shirt underneath of the type that screams ‘hooligan’. If he wasn’t a drug dealer, he was trying his damn hardest to look like one. He didn’t have gold teeth but looked like he should somehow. Actually, he looked like he could have been related to Goldie, his nephew maybe.
He was on his way to Oxford to see his wife and kids, “Lost. All day,” he said in an emphasised estuary accent. We didn’t connect well and I think he might have thought I was a bit simple. He lived in a satellite town but came through central London because the coach took too long or something like that. Unfortunately, that was all I got out of him before he said he had to get off.
It only occurred to me afterwards that he got off at Oxford Circus, when I’m pretty sure coaches for Oxford go from Victoria coach station, further down the line. There are four explanations I can think of for this: 1. He really was lost, 2. He was an idiot and was confusing Oxford Circus with Oxford, 3. I was being an idiot and misunderstood him or 4. He got off early because of me.
I hope it wasn’t the latter, but in hindsight it does seem possible. I am quite careful to try not to intimidate people, but he seemed very cocksure and, frankly, quite intimidating himself so I was just quite chatty with him. Also, if the conversation really dies out, or I’m getting a clear ‘leave me alone’ message, I let it lie. On the other hand though, I might have just been annoying him. Sorry tracksuit man, I’ll try to do better in the future.
[8th October]
[Clarification: It’s been pointed out to me that although the Oxford coach leaves from Victoria, two stops down the line, it also stops at Marble Arch, not far from Oxford Circus, so it may well be me that was being the idiot. Did I mention I’m new to London? Still, something to be careful of]
I want this blog, as well as being an interesting social experiment, to cover, and get people’s views on, all sorts of social, political and topical issues. So, having had three unguided conversations with people that had wandered freely (if haltingly), I decided to give my subjects (or victims) some direction today. As he’s been the man in the headlines this week with it being the Labour party conference, I chose Ed Miliband as the topic. What did people think of him? Had the conference and his ambitious speech changed their perception of him?
I have to admit, I copped out a bit today. I said that I was asking them out of curiosity because I was writing something about Miliband, which although true (this), does break my rule of not mentioning the blog a bit. In future, I’ll just plunge in without explanation. This whole experience is quite a learning curve. It is a lot easier to approach people when you have at least some semblance of an excuse though, and the two I spoke to today reacted well too.
For my part I managed to suppress the childish smirk I feel coming on whenever the PA announces the tube’s destination as ‘Cockfosters’. It’s the way the woman says it.
The first man I tried was a professional looking type, in smart casual dress, standing with a briefcase between his feet. I went straight in: can I ask you a question? What do you think of Ed Miliband? He said he didn’t know much about him and hadn’t seen any of his speech to the conference a couple of days earlier. Besides, “David [Cameron]’s my man anyway.” Still, he said democratically, “It’s important that the Labour party has good leadership.” Did he think it had it? He wasn’t sure. “I wanted the other brother to win.”
After he got off a couple of stops later, I approached a middle aged woman sitting at the end of a row. She looked pleasantly surprised to be asked, “Oh I don’t know much about him,” she replied at first. She’d been on holiday for a couple of weeks and hadn’t been keeping up with the news or seen his speech. “They’re all talk though, aren’t they?” Who, all the politicians or Miliband in particular? “The lot of them really.” She insisted she didn’t know that much about it, maybe I should ask someone else?
No way, she was by far the friendliest and keenest person I’d encountered so far and we carried on chatting a bit about her holiday and the unseasonable weather that was making the tube feel humid, sweaty and slightly contagious, but somehow less formal, with her asking me questions and enquiring about my life as well. Perhaps it was that she worked in a university and was used to being around a lot of young people (25’s still young right?) but she was also clearly just a very friendly person. I hope I find more like her!
She must have known more than she was letting on at first as suddenly she got back on topic: “Ed Miliband, isn’t he the guy who wants to do something about tuition fees?” I told her he had proposed lowering them to £6,000. Did she think that was enough? “Well it’s better than £9,000, isn’t it?” This was obviously an important issue for her, and affected her personally. “It’s alright for Oxford and Cambridge but who’s going to pay that to go to [my university]?” Would it be enough to make her vote for him? She said it would, she used to be “a sort of liberal but that would probably sway it for me.”
Well, there you go, one floating voter won for Labour there then, and a great conversation for me; we covered a lot of other things briefly, including the “terrible” riots, a university strike this week and had a few moments mutual huffing about the Lib Dems before we said a friendly goodbye when I had to get off. I left feeling that both of us had made each other’s day that little bit better.
What came back to me afterwards was the first man’s parting shot about Miliband’s presentation as he was getting off the train. “He’s not a natural, is he? Not like David.” When your supporters refer to you by your first name, you must be doing something right, and I think Ed Miliband is quite a long way off from that yet.
This time I went for a more direct approach. “Hi, how are you?” I said jovially as I flopped myself down next to a small and slight young Asian man holding a Blackberry. I’d decided to try and act like he was an acquaintance or friend of a friend, who it was perfectly natural for me to be talking to. He was OK he said very quietly, probably hoping I’d leave it at that. No, sorry.
I pulled out my ‘going anywhere interesting?’ line and he said he was on his way home, so I told him that I was looking for a flat and asked if he had any advice on where to live. He didn’t, he replied, he was quite new to London too. Well, not that new, it turned out; he had been here for a year studying medicine at Queen Mary University since moving from Delhi, India.
He was quite a quiet guy – I struggled to hear him over the shrieking and roaring of the tube – and clearly not at ease talking to a stranger. I think we only made eye contact once in about ten minutes, (although this is difficult when sitting next to someone on the bench of a cramped tube train) and the whole time we spoke, he repeatedly started to write a text message on his Blackberry, getting as far as something like ‘Yes that would be good,’ before deleting and recomposing it. But, like the first two, he loosened up a bit as we talked and I realised that it was more that he was shy than anything else and would not be much more talkative in any other situation.
How does London compare to Delhi? “It’s very different,” he said, his accent strong but his speech precise, “Life is faster here.” And greyer? “Yes, definitely.” Medicine was tough he said, and he hadn’t decided which area he wanted to go into yet. He still had another year to go before he would be seeing any patients. After he finished, he was planning to go back home to Delhi. Did he think it would be different being a doctor there to here? “Pretty much the same,” he said, surprisingly. I suppose the anatomy’s the same wherever you are.
This was certainly a lot less awkward than the last time, but I did most of the talking. I think I need to plan out some lines of questioning with a view to getting more out of people. In the end we found some mutual ground on student living. It must be expensive being one in London. “Yes,” he said, “transport is expensive. I’d advise you to live near to where you work.”
Ah, if only you knew, my friend, I’ll still have to catch it anyway!
It took me four tube trains before I plucked up the courage to talk to someone. I’ve got to say, striking up a conversation with a stranger on the tube is a lot more intimidating than I’d expected. On the walk to the tube station, I’d come up with what I thought was a fool-proof script for starting a conversation that I’d begin after catching another standing passenger’s eye. “Going anywhere interesting?” I’d say. “Work” (or something boring) they’d reply. “Let’s not talk about that then,” I’d say, hilariously. “What about you, where are you going?” they’d naturally ask. “I’m flat-hunting. I’m new to London you see. Do you have any tips for me?” and so it would go on.
As soon as I set foot in the carriage, I knew that’s not how it would go down. For a start, no-one else was standing. Second, anyone whose eye I caught looked at me in such a disdainful, almost withering way that I had to look away immediately. I ended up standing in the doorway, looking at my feet, hoping for more friendly looking people to get on. None did. Not disturbing your fellow tube travellers, I realised, is a real social convention and absolutely no-one breaks it, unless they have an express purpose, which I didn’t (or unless alcohol is involved, of course, which it wasn’t). I’m not a shy person, but I’m no manic extravert either. Maybe I’m too British for this, I began to think. I felt like I was about to strip to my underwear in front of the other passengers. While keeping my socks on.
So I bravely decided that observation was the better part of valour and took a few more journeys up and down the Northern Line to acclimatise to the environment and psyche myself up. I was not going to let myself go home without having talked to someone, goddamn it. I’d already put this off for two days. I just needed to talk to one person and then I’d lose the fear. There were a couple of times I was just ready to do it, had an angle worked out in my head. After the next station, I’d think. Both times, my target got off at that stop.
Eventually, I got on a southbound train and sat down inbetween an blonde older woman, maybe a bit over 65 (I’m quite bad at estimating age though I think), playing solitaire on her phone, looking down her nose at it in that slightly suspicious way older people often look at technology and a man intently reading on a Kindle. The man looked quite engrossed and had headphones in so the woman it was. She didn’t look too scary either, bit of a kindly granny type, with one of those wrinkly granny mouths, but by no means past it. “Hi” I said, turning to her. She didn’t respond, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. “Excuse me,” I said in a friendly but louder voice. She looked up from her phone, looking a little surprised. I explained that I’d been travelling around on the tube a lot today (true) and was bored (terrified) and asked if she minded if I chatted to her. I think the tiny sound that came out of her mouth was a “No,” which I took to mean “No I don’t mind”. I told her I was new to London and asked if she had any tips. She shook her head, looking more alarmed than surprised now. In for a penny, I thought, and kept talking. For a while, I didn’t think she was going to say anything at all. I had expected this would happen sooner or later but on the first try? Gradually though, she started to open up into monosyllabic answers, and then into what could be described as awkward conversation. I did most of the talking, but it was a conversation. “You don’t have much of an accent,” she commented when I told her where I was from, adding “Fast trains [to there] aren’t they?” It didn’t get much past this but I had done it, and by the time she got off a few minutes later (looking a bit relieved) she waved goodbye politely.
But I was on a roll now, and besides felt a bit stupid just sitting there after the other passengers had heard me tell her I was bored and wanted to talk. Still, none of them looked particularly up for it. Luckily a short-haired skinny young guy, maybe late 20’s, wearing a polo shirt and tracky bottoms who had been talking animatedly to his friend came and took the woman’s place, his heavily set mate going further down the carriage for a seat. Thinking he might have seen me talking to the woman, I just turned to him and asked straight up “Have you got any tips for a new Londoner?” He reacted completely differently and turned to me, instantly engaged “Hmm, I dunno,” he said, thinking about it hard before shouting to his mate down the carriage “Jim! Any tips?” Jim didn’t have any, so I gave him a little prompting: places to live, how to get a job…? “Well, it’s all drinking, innit?” he replied cryptically in his thick Essex lad accent. He was easy to talk to, however, and this got us onto my interview for a bar job that afternoon, as well as other drinking spots. Get off at Charing Cross and make your way to Leicester Square or head for the “Saafbank, na’at ah mean?” was his recommendation, although he said he always had to get the train home early because he lived out towards Dartford. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the accents down here and I didn’t catch what he did for a living or have time to follow it up as he certainly didn’t need much prompting once he got going. I laughed along to his negatively defined assessment of festivals – “All that living in a field, shitting in a box, it’s not for me” – and music – “All the bands and indie stuff, it’s not really my cup of tea” – for a good 15 minutes, but although he talked a lot, he didn’t really have that much to say and I was a bit relieved myself when I parted ways with him and Jim at London Bridge. Still, I’m glad I spoke to him and, on reflection, actually got quite an insight into his life I suppose. I think I’ll have to make more effort to steer the conversation in interesting directions in the future though.
Nonetheless, both of my first two talk-ees, despite being very different people, showed that with a little encouragement people will open up and start talking on the tube. A social convention it may be, but I took a big step towards getting used to breaking it today, which is just as well as I’m going to be doing a lot more of it for this blog.
London Talking 
