please empty your brain below
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Surely the Baby Eating bishop of Bath and Wells?
Marc | 17.01.18 - 7:21 a.m. | #
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The accumulation of small events that make up the beach of life.
Still Anon | 17.01.18 - 7:50 a.m. | #
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Thanks dg - lovely post.
Dave Walker | Homepage | 17.01.18 - 8:26 a.m. | #
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You may just have spoilt my day ;)
Your used tickets are much less scrunched than mine.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 17.01.18 - 8:33 a.m. | #
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A wonderful essay on three rail tickets. I would enjoy a bookful of 'tickets' life stories like this.
Herbof | 17.01.18 - 8:40 a.m. | #
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Really lovely post DG
kittens | 17.01.18 - 8:40 a.m. | #
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This is why I love reading this blog. Thank you for sharing.
Dave | 17.01.18 - 9:36 a.m. | #
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Lovey post and great connections - what follows is highly irrelevant, but: I was born in Bromley, one sister lived in Bedford and the other in Edinburgh.
Mitch | Homepage | 17.01.18 - 9:45 a.m. | #
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"I'm sure we all keep old rail tickets stashed in a shoebox"
Err NO
Ken | 17.01.18 - 9:45 a.m. | #
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Two hours from Bedford to Wickford? I think you'd need a following wind and good timetable links to do that. Bedford->St Pancras->Liverpool St->Wickford. The Bedford -> London and London-> Wickford are both about 40 mins at their fastest and that's relying on a fast train.
dg writes: Perfectly doable on the right trains, as I repeatedly proved for weeks afterwards.
Half a physicist | 17.01.18 - 9:57 a.m. | #
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Great post. Thanks. Was this from before the days of machines eating tickets for completed journeyed, or was DG just lucky?
dg writes: My stack of uneaten tickets, 1987-2018, would be at least a foot tall.
Andrew | 17.01.18 - 10:02 a.m. | #
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The food in The Bell still disappoints - well for that price anyway.
Running_Correspondent | 17.01.18 - 10:17 a.m. | #
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Excellent post. Made me mist over with the memory of it all (until i realised they were, in fact, your memories...)
Milo | 17.01.18 - 10:18 a.m. | #
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@Herbof A bookful of stories based on train tickets is an inspired idea dg.
The narrative really does come alive.
louise | 17.01.18 - 10:50 a.m. | #
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dg writes: I've already altered that, Timbo.
Lord Percy of Pedantry | 17.01.18 - 11:01 a.m. | #
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What a lovely post DG. Those people who mostly travel in cars don't know what they're missing.
Cornish Monkey | 17.01.18 - 11:08 a.m. | #
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Just lovely.
Thanks
Joho | 17.01.18 - 11:08 a.m. | #
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Thank you,DG, a most enjoyable read this morning.
Jo W | 17.01.18 - 11:54 a.m. | #
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Just to add my thanks for this post and to agree with what's been said already. I was really, and strangely, moved by it. Maybe because it evoked my own memories of times and journeys long past, and I'm glad that I'm not alone in keeping the tickets!
baldrick | 17.01.18 - 12:25 p.m. | #
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Maybe the imminent much-anticipated annual 'Count' feature could record how many of us keep used rail tickets. For the record: I don't.
Frank F | 17.01.18 - 12:42 p.m. | #
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During the next two years the excellent bits were excellent and the awful bits were awful
Emotions starting to stir as this reminds me of one past relationship. It took me several years to get over that relationship. Since then, I think I've found "the one" for me. I hope you do too.
Excellent article.
Jon Jones | 17.01.18 - 1:51 p.m. | #
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The problem with modern e-tickets is that you can't keep these tiny mementos that stir old memories.
Jon Jones | 17.01.18 - 1:53 p.m. | #
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Is the mention of her riding boots a hint that the DG list of 'modes of transport that I have experienced' includes 'horse riding' as well as train/tube/bus/riverboat/aeroplane/dangleway, etc?
dg writes: No, it's not. But I have.
RayL | 17.01.18 - 2:15 p.m. | #
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Good read but the last sentence jars, how can you be absolutely sure of anything! Another twist of fate could just have easily drawn you to London and blogging!
dg writes: Rest assured that I know more about my life than you do.
Sir Biton | 17.01.18 - 2:46 p.m. | #
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Amazing how cheap train tickets used to be. I remember getting a return ticket from Erdington to Birmingham New Street for 40p in the early 90s..
Adrian | 17.01.18 - 3:30 p.m. | #
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@half physicist is implying that St Pancras to Liverpool St cannot be done in 40 minutes. Rather pessimistic even allowing for changes ?
Unfortunately my old tickets are from Italy or France as I can't afford trains in this country.
kev | 17.01.18 - 3:35 p.m. | #
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I love these little glimpses into the Man Behind the Blog.
Cornish Cockney | 17.01.18 - 3:39 p.m. | #
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Lovely tales. And what an inspired idea to hang them on.
It's not just today's ticket gates (when staffed) which keep finished tickets. The human collectors, when we had them, also did the same thing at times. (But we did not use the "eating" metaphor then!).
Malcolm | 17.01.18 - 4:15 p.m. | #
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Right a goddam book diamondgeezer, your voice deserves to be heard more than on this blog.
abc123 | 17.01.18 - 4:55 p.m. | #
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Perhaps, in another life where DG's blind date was better long-term suited to him that in our world, we'd still have had a Diamond Geezer blog to follow. However, instead of Bow's Bus Stop M, it would've been more Essex
Now, before you all complain, I'm not suggesting "DG's guide to the best fake-tan shops this side of Southend", more "4 Utopian Villages in Coastal East Essex you've never heard of". Rather like the Jonathan Meades Essex program, but longer and in blog form :)
Nick Burch | 17.01.18 - 4:56 p.m. | #
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@kev no the link from St Pan to Liverpool St is quicker, but DG's journey relies on the trains linking up.
Half a physicist | 17.01.18 - 5:02 p.m. | #
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I agree with abc123. I feel like there is a book in here somewhere.
john- | 17.01.18 - 5:23 p.m. | #
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What does Y-P mean on the first two tickets?
dg writes: There's a major clue under the second ticket.
Half a physicist | 17.01.18 - 6:05 p.m. | #
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Awwwwhhh, I really enjoyed that too. I appreciate ALL your varied daily thoughts DG. I should tell you this more often. Thank you.
Neesy | 17.01.18 - 7:44 p.m. | #
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Three wonderful glimpses of a time that was...
Thank you, DG.
Celal Kavur | 17.01.18 - 8:34 p.m. | #
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I've often wondered whether your ex has any idea that you write this blog and the same applies to the various people you mention from time to time in your blog.
Perhaps in a couple of hundred years people will be reading the Diamond Geezer diaries just as they read Samuel Pepys' today. I hope in your will you will donate them to the British Library
John | 17.01.18 - 9:12 p.m. | #
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oh thank you. I was flummoxed by the Network South East (I think) on the third ticket And incidentally, I am a Y-P (legitimately) 50s grey hair and all, but had to provide supporting evidence....
Half a physicist | 17.01.18 - 9:18 p.m. | #
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@Half a physicist Just because the trains do not link up today bears little relevance on whether they did 20 years ago.
Kirk | 17.01.18 - 10:44 p.m. | #
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The ex follows me on Twitter.
I only write about trains so often to make sure they never read the other posts.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 17.01.18 - 10:55 p.m. | #
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Shoe box - no, but a little bag with a random selection with such gems as a 10p tube ticket from Charing Cross (year not included on date) and a
£10.60 pass from East Putney to Shepherds Bush valid Sep-Dec 1976 courtesy of good old ILEA
Sadly I can't string a story from most of the tickets - which is why today's post is so brilliant - but my NSE £1 Network Day ticket of 21/6/85 is memorable for a round trip from Canterbury with a college mate that took in Salisbury and Chichester, where we calculated that there wouldn't be time to get back via the south coast, so went in and out the longer/quicker via Victoria instead. Said mate was later a flatmate for a while and now a fellow director of our business.
NickW | 17.01.18 - 11:19 p.m. | #
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dg - Re John's @ 9.12 pm comment - is the British Library still archiving your blog at regular intervals - I had a fading memory that they were a few years ago [confirmed a bit later here?
dg writes: No.
Gordon | 17.01.18 - 11:32 p.m. | #
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Blimey, only £13.95 for a weekend in Wickford. 20 years on, and prices are (to use old venacular):
£41.50 for a Cheap Day Return, £46.60 for a Saver, and £68.40 for a standard Day Return.
TheLupineOne | 17.01.18 - 11:33 p.m. | #
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Utterly regrettable [re 11.32 pm].
dg quotes: "Since April 2013 the British Library has begun to archive the whole of the UK web domain"
Gordon | 17.01.18 - 11:46 p.m. | #
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It is good that you have not written a book, but kept to the blog format. It makes us work to find gems like this, instead of having the whole text available and searchable. I rather hope that the BL won't get round too soon to providing a full-text search facility of this and other blogs.
Bob L-S | 18.01.18 - 9:21 a.m. | #
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A truly enjoyable read. Brought thoughts of Sliding Doors,"If I hadn't bought that ticket" and Rihanna's We Found Love (in a hopeless place) "Southend seafront. Oh the glamour".
I'm sure Ken is only kidding and most of us do keep old rail tickets. I bin the more mundane ones but keep the Bedford to Wickford type ones. Pretty certain I'd be able to find an Edinburgh to North Queensferry one too.
Lorenzo | 18.01.18 - 9:54 a.m. | #
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What a great post- this got me- "that's why my used ticket pile is full of returns to Wickford from that weekend on, right up until the point they stopped..."
anon1 | 18.01.18 - 11:05 p.m. | #
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3 interesting glimpses into the life of DG.
I do keep some old rail and LT tickets but not having kept a diary I could never provide the chapter and verse that you have.
PC | 19.01.18 - 12:56 a.m. | #
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As usual, a very enjoyable post. I wish I had been so diligent in collecting things, and keeping a diary. I can’t remember a thing! I must have been alive, but what on earth was I doing all those years?
Sally | 19.01.18 - 8:40 p.m. | #
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A moving post in more ways than one.
THC | 20.01.18 - 8:45 a.m. | #
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