Photo by Jennifer Lim on Google Maps
Up early, a last double-check of the pack. Everything in, nothing forgotten?
The taxi toots. We bundle in. ‘Coach station please.’
Saturday, turnaround day, the holidaymakers go home.
The driver calls, ‘London Victoria.’ That’s ours.
The coach is crowded, multi-ethnic skins and loud London voices. They soon settle down.
Tightly squeezed through Suffolk towns, already congested when coaches used horses, the last pick-up done, and like a bird from a cage, the coach escapes onto the motorway.
Now we’re freewheeling, next stop London.
Soon after, we’re under that whopping circular flyover. We groan. Beyond here the chug-chug begins … past shop fronts bright with cheap clothes and sarees, past street-markets, synagogues and temples. Past Big Ben and Buck House until disgorged at ARRIVALS.
Packs reclaimed, we hurry across the road to DEPARTURES and check out the boards. For London is never our destination.
Wordcount 143
Written for What Pegman Saw: London
crispina kemp 
Oh! Wonderful description of traffic and people and the desire to get where one needs to be. “already congested when coaches used horses” What a great line.
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I thank you. A compilation of many journeys when my destination has been further south.
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What a fun adventure you provided me with this morning.
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So glad you enjoyed. My daughter read it yesterday and said, Yep, that’s familiar. Familiar from many a coach journey into London, there to change to another coach to reach the southern counties (where they have hills which we lack in any quantity in flat old Norfolk)
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What a wonderful ride you have taken us on. I like the short sentences acting like stops along the way; then the longer one, letting us know there are no more stops till you reach the destination.
Great writing, Crispina.
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I thank you, Dale. I had to cut loads out, but I think it helped with that speeding rhythm.
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It really did!
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Dear Crispina,
You made me feel like I was there. Wonderfully written piece.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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I thank you, Rochelle. It’s a journey I have often made, though not of late.
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Brought back many memories, this. Spent hours at Victoria coach station as a kid, travelling between mum’s in Derbyshire and Dad’s in Romford. Back in the 80s Victoria station was more like a garage than a hub for commuters – filthy, smelly, with no obvious safe way to cross lines of diesel belching coaches. I found it terrifying! You reimagine those days so clearly, with the sights and sounds of the big city. Great writing Crispina
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I was frequently in London from the 1970s through 1980s and into 2000s, either passing from Victoria Coach to Victoria Rail, or for connections to other coaches. I don’t remember how awful the station, not in detail, but it certainly wasn’t as we see it today. And yea, life was taken in both hands as we headed from one drop off to the next pick up. And the constant smell of diesel!
It’s a few years now since my last visit to Victoria. I noticed then more attention given to passenger safety, with an enclosed waiting area and not allowed near to the coaches until called. Still chaotic. But a great place to people watch.
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Great for people watching as you say. And at least they’re safer now than they used to be! 🙂
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Cleaner too. With very expensive food.
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🙂
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Very evocative story, conjuring up memories from my childhood. I love your last line particularly!
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Yea. when I was younger I spent time in London. No, it doesn’t appeal. It’s a place to pass through.
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I lived there for three years in my early twenties, but my memories of the coach station predate that by quite a margin. As in your story, I was passing through to somewhere else. In some ways living in London was exhilarating, but in many ways it was soul-destroying. It seemed very corrupt – come to that, it still does…
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I never actually lived there. A dated a Londoner, and would stay weekends. Great, we’d go to art galleries and concerts and stuff, but I always felt an outsider, and I was always glad to go home. A few years latet my journeys were purely pass-throughs on the way to the south. What I see in the media doesn’t tempt me to stay as much as a night, now.
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I love the language in this! It does triple duty, evoking the feel of the trip through the clipped efficient phrasing. It took me right along with you! (Thank you, by the way 🙂 )
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I enjoyed the write. And i actually enjoyed clipping it down to meet the wordcount; my first thoughts on this, while in the same style, come to double the wordage
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It made for a great effect!
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I thank you, head bowed, and smile.
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great description of the bustle. well done
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I thank you. Enjoyed the doing 🙂
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