Sitting on the train from Gillingham to London a few weeks ago, I could not help but overhear a mother’s unutterable panic as a result of one brief phone call. She was obviously on her way to work in London, so I imagine she had spent the previous 24 hours preparing for the trip, carrying out the usual chores that go with looking after a home, children and a husband, and then turning her attention to herself, her appearance and shifting her mind from meal preparation to business mode. As usual, the train was busy with mid-week commuters sitting thigh to thigh, leafing through their newspapers with the odd few enthusiastically tapping away on a laptop.
This smartly dressed mum, trapped next to the window in a group of four seats, picked up her mobile to make a call. Little did we all know that what was about to happen would throw her and, inadvertently us, into an almighty panic for the next hour. She was calling home, as it turned out, just to check her teenage son was up, dressed and on his bus journey to a 9am GSCE Chemistry exam. The call then went something like this, “What? How could you have fallen back to sleep. Your exam starts in less than an hour?” She then shouted at him to get dressed and that she would call back in five minutes once she had sorted out a lift. She hung up, distraught. My fellow passengers and I sympathetically witnessed her spend the next ten minutes making panicky calls trying to find someone who could drive him to school. Her husband was at work, and her options seemed to be running out. By now, all our hearts were pumping as she made a final call to a neighbour. The look of relief across her face as the neighbour came to the rescue meant we could return to our newspapers. She got back on the phone to her son and very firmly told him to get ready to be picked up and grovel like mad. It was undoubtedly, the most impressive display of co-ordination skills I had ever witnessed under extreme pressure, in front of a carriage full of suited and booted commuters and all before 9am.
What I and perhaps other passengers would love to know is if her son actually made his GSCE exam on time. So if you were this poor mother on the Exeter train to Waterloo on Thursday 21st June, do please get in touch and let me know.
