Return to normal, by Peter Morford

 After more than a year I’ve got used to working from home. It was odd at first to wake at my usual time of 6am and be ready for the short walk to the station for the 7.10 up-train. I miss the regularity of

meeting my friends in the buffet car for our breakfasts. I say friends but we rarely exchanged names, all we had in common was a ninety minute trip from the coast to Victoria Station. We naturally broke up

into little cliques. There were the two chess-players who patiently ignored the misleading advice we gave them. There was the card school on table one. The argumentative set huffed and puffed about

the Government. There was the man who liked to tease the buffet attendant, who, in his best Jeeves voice, would ask how Sir would like his toast. After a moment’s thought Horace would say “Medium rare, my good man.” Sometimes, just to be awkward, he could demand “Very well done. I want to hear your smoke alarm.”

For more than a year one table hosted two women, two men. My friend Greene speculated about them. He also had theories about the men he called Trotsky and Churchill as they heatedly argued their left-wing-right-wing view of life and then politely shook hands as they left the train.

I remembered the retirement party for the old boy who had commuted for 45 years.

**

I took a spare bedroom for my home office. For the first week or two I dressed in my usual City suit, white shirt, regimental tie, shiny shoes. After a while I gradually dressed down. I was respectable above the waist in deference to the daily Zoom meetings, but below that – jeans, shorts, flip-flops. Only two vital things were the same. I was always at my desk 9.15 to 5.30, took 45 minutes for lunch. After a tea break I was back at the keyboard for another 30 minutes, the time I had always spent working on the home-bound train.

Now there is talk about a return to the office. We’ve all been vaccinated months ago and tested weekly. It should be safe, we are told. My colleagues viewed the prospect in different ways. Some would miss the freedom and trust they had enjoyed. The Bank ruled that, as long as all tasks were completed on time, they were happy.

We had all saved money. My Bank balance is padded with the unspent £5000 for a yearly season ticket and I would guess, £3000 for lunches in The Bistro.

Old stagers like me had certain figures on our minds. I was a 30-year commuter. Think of the numbers. I had made the 140 miles round trip about 7000 times, over a million miles. I had spent 21,000 hours on dusty seats or, on the homeward trip, waiting for a seat. I had the skills of a homing pigeon. If I dozed I knew instantly where I was when I awoke, in darkness or light. I had never missed my stop. Did I want this return to The City? I could retire or, perhaps find a local job. But what would I find in a sleepy seaside town?