By Christine Swan
In a change to my intended post, which should have anticipated my exciting upcoming weekend of whale watching in Cornwall, instead, I am going to reflect on the crushing disappointment of cancellations.
I read that the key to happiness is to always have at least one holiday booked. I have a colourful spreadsheet on my laptop, that holds all of my upcoming events and bookings. I always have variety of interesting activities booked in advance with the intention of packing as much as I can into my active years. I find delays an irritant – like road drills, people who have loud phone conversations on trains that start with: “Hi, I’m on a train!”, or tall people in the seat in front of you in a theatre. But, cancellations grind my gears like nothing else. I am inclined to behave like Basil Fawlty losing his temper with his little mini car won’t start at a critical point, resulting in him thrashing it with a tree branch. I lose all perspective, and the cancellation changes the way I think about everything, including, who to blame and how they could have acted differently. I lose faith in the organisation that I booked with and I slap on a big label that says “unreliable”.
My Dad always taught me that reliability was the key to professionalism, “My word is my bond”, and all that. We all value reliability and dependability, and this cements your reputation. I detest giving in to illness, although I had to recently during a bout of flu followed by tonsillitis. If I say I will be there, I will be there.
The problem with cancellations is that they also have knock-on effects – they impact on my reliability. For example, my local Train Operating Company cancels 3% of its trains but, in my experience of travelling both at peak times and off peak, it is usually the train that I was planning to catch to get to work, or my train home. Some services appear to be particularly vulnerable and are definitely cancelled more often. One provider, who shall remain nameless, running out of Birmingham New Street, cancels 7% of its services.
A bad day on the rails
“I don’t know why you bother”, my friends often ask me after I have posted my latest social media rant, followed by: “Why don’t you just drive like everyone else?”. The truth is that I am committed to the belief in a reasonably priced, reliable, public transport system. Is that so wrong? I want to prove that it can be a viable alternative to driving, leaving you free to forget about parking charges, being free to read a book, fall asleep, or to just stare out of the window at the world passing by. Every cancellation leaves me crestfallen as my argument becomes weaker. “You just can’t rely on the trains”, was one recent comment made to me. Maybe they have a point?
Nightmare on New Street
Whilst on my epic journey to Malta by boat and train in 2018, I received an email, entirely in Italian, informing me that due to a strike, the sleeper train from Milan to Paris, on my return leg of the journey, was cancelled. Instead, an overnight coach would be provided. I’m not a huge fan of coach travel, but at least it was something. The coaches left Milan at the same time as the train would have, but trying to get some rest on a coach with exceedingly limited legroom, and two arguing Italian train managers, did not make for a restful night. I had booked a sleeper cabin, with ensuite facilities on the train, but ended up on a noisy coach, hurtling along roads through the Alps in the dead of night, twisting and turning along the precarious, snow-covered way, with a few service station stops in the early morning. As we sped through France, I realised that I would miss my Eurostar connection. I did try to contact the company to explain but, as I had booked each leg of my journey with a separate company, my delay was not their fault and so I had to buy an entirely new ticket, at much greater cost, due to dynamic pricing, as the train was due to leave in a couple of hours. Another expensive cancellation and accompanying loss of faith.
Finally back in Paris after not a lot of sleep
Last December, I had a theatre visit booked to see a play that was an adaptation of the well-known story of Cyrano de Bergerac. Everything was planned – train, hotel, theatre tickets, so I set off on Friday morning in anticipation of a relaxing weekend of patronising the Arts. My phone pinged whilst on my train journey down and I nonchalantly checked my emails – “I regret to inform you that tonight’s performance is cancelled….”. That was it, it’s just too late! I was already on the train, I had booked the hotel, it was a few weeks before Christmas, it really was too late to cancel.
I was brought up with the notion of the show going on, no matter what. Large theatres can afford to retain understudies but surely, even for small theatres, there are actors in training who could read the part. In a previous show where an actor was taken ill, a trainee who was working behind the bar earlier in the evening, stepped in, did a sterling job and received huge applause from an appreciative audience. These things happen, and the show did indeed go on. To cancel, is to wobble that notion.
As luck would have it, another performance, at a different off-West End theatre was not sold out, so the day was saved, my journey to London was not wasted, the hotel room was occupied by me and a good weekend was had.
My latest disappointment is still quite raw, but it’s the knock-on effects that perhaps are easily overlooked. This weekend I would have travelled sustainably, by train, to Cornwall. I would have eaten in local cafes and restaurants, I would have likely bought some souvenirs, spending money in the locality and providing a little boost to the local economy. I’m now not going. Worse than that, my faith in booking a future trip is dented. What if I book and get cancelled again?
We can’t always get what we want and my problems don’t amount to a hill of beans in the current climate. As we speak, Eurostar have cancelled trains out of London due to discovery of an unexploded World War II bomb on the track in France. There will be several thousand people also feeling disappointed, frustrated and powerless. There isn’t a simple solution and this is not the fault of the Train Operating Company, but I think the human nature and the wobble in confidence that results from it, is very real and needs to be recognised more than it currently is. People complain, but they also change their habits too. They can be lured back, but I don’t think that companies always recognise the damage that cancellations can do.
All photos by the author
Awful Rigours and Wretched Pay 