Get a Railcard and become a celebrity magnet

Sometimes I sit here stirring at the screen whilst Johanna shouts idea at me about things I can write about in the column. If she’s not shouting she’s bombarding me with ideas – things she’s seen on the web, snippets from the media, anything to retain the relentless output of column after column. I try to explain that the ‘well of creativity’ is not a tap, it is a well where sometimes the waters are dry and so deep that a bucket does not even need to be lowered. Her response is usually along the lines of how there are plenty of other people who she could ask to write for us and the only well she is interested in is the, "Oh well, we’re not going to pay you this month”. She then sits there chuckling, whilst she suckles on a gherkin thinking this is the funniest joke in the world.

From the depths of despair grows hope though. There is plenty of inspiration around. Apparently the most powerful disabled person in the country, a guy called Gordon Brown, is a bully. Probably the second most influential disabled person in the country Heather Mills (no longer McCartney) has a pathological inability not to give to charity or do positive work. Both are often treated as if they are child murderers rather than people who some people don’t like. Both could qualify for a Disabled Persons Railcard and both, I suspect, would travel in the part of the train favoured by Nicholas Winterton MP. Yet I don’t think celebrity spotting is an activity I’ve ever indulged in when using trains.

That’s not to say that you don’t come across famous people. Even the Queen is now known to hop on the train en route to Sandringham. And once, whilst at Birmingham New Street, I was told that Prince Philip was arriving on a service from London. Not the Royal train but a standard intercity train. Of course, to my knowledge neither the Queen nor Prince Philip would qualify for a Disabled Persons Railcard but they are eligible for the Senior Railcard as are Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Helen Mirren. Mr McCartney, of course, is reputed to have enough money to buy a couple of train companies, never mind a train ticket. Not quite sure if he would get a third off the price of a new company with his Senior Persons Railcard.

If I scratch my head hard and think about it, the only really famous people I’ve seen on the rail network are Elvis Costello (at Bradford Interchange in 1982), Billy Bremner (at Leeds station in the Summer of 1972) and I did meet Douglas Hurd (who by then was Lord Hurd) on the district line in London about three years ago. Meeting Ken Livingstone on public transport doesn’t count – it’s like meeting John Terry at a wife swapping party – just what you would expect. I hate to say it but in London, buses and travelling as a pedestrian are the easiest way to meet famous people.

For the sake of political balance I should state that I met Michael Foot on a 159 bus going to West Hampstead and also ran into the then England manager Terry Venables in Selfridges just before Euro 96 (OK – maybe it was Top Shop but please don’t spread that around too much).

Oh and I’ve twice bumped into Billy Connolly – once in the toilets at The Pleasance theatre and once in Sydney Harbour. In the case of the incident at The Pleasance I wish to emphasise that both of us were doing what is perfectly permissible in a toilet so please, no cheap sniggering at the back!

During the course of writing this article I have begun to realise that I am, perhaps, a closet celebrity spotter bordering on celebrity stalker. This is quite worrying. And, as I write, lots of other memories are flashing back - some of which are quite nightmarish (I have an image of Gazza in a horrible shell suit just after Italia 90 that would not look out of place in a Hammer Horror movie).

To be honest I think there has only been one occasion when the celebrity has been truly worried and that was Neil Kinnock. Shortly after Kinnock became leader of the Labour Party he did lots of meetings with disability organisations and I ended up going to all of them. It got to the point where I think he started to check the exit doors when he realised I was also in the room. Was I a hack from The Sun? An assassin from the National Union of Miners? Time passed and Kinnock stopped doing these meetings and then – this is totally true – about 18 months ago and I ran into Glenys Kinnock in a lift at Covent Garden tube. Rather than leave it there I explained the story of stalking Neil, which I found funnier than she did and well, there I was again – a celebrity stalking weirdo! A celebrity stalking weirdo watching Glenys beat a hasty retreat!

Oh my god! Another one comes back to haunt me! On the day of the funeral of Diana Princess of Wales I cycled past a car with Prince Edward and Prince Andrew inside. What demon have I unleashed here? Is this a lifetime’s preoccupation? There is no cure for this.

Only a few weeks ago I bumped into Alexi Sayle who was passing near to Railcard Towers. The worst aspect of this syndrome is that I engage these poor people in conversation. Well, not all of them. I mean it would have been a bit much to start banging on the roof of the HRH’s limo on such a sad day saying. “Andy and Ed – how you doing guys? What did you think of Elton’s number?”

So perhaps this is why I like rail travel. On a train we can all drift into the background, we go unnoticed. We can hide behind a newspaper, read a book, have a glass of wine, safe in the knowledge that the bloke who writes the Ramblings articles is not going to disturb you!

Until next time.