British Rail, realising the enormous potential offered by pocket money and paper rounds, offered a suberb ticket for the young enthusiast. The three day rover ticket was three tickets in one. Each ticket was valid for a days worth of unlimited travel within set boundaries. I could afford about one of these every holiday period, and used them to go all over the midlands. The furthest I went was Preston, which was not included within the boundaries of the ticket. This was not intentional, as I never had enough money with me to pay the excess fares, but was in fact due to getting on the wrong connection from Manchester. As I wasn't the only one who had done this (a wrong platform announcement was to blame) I was prepared to plead my case with the guard. It wasn't nescessary. The poor guy had had such an ear bending before he even got to me, that he simply wrote on the back of my ticket "via Preston". Unfortunately I got back to Sheffield so late that I had missed the last service to stop at Saxilby. I explained what had happened to the guard of the Lincoln service I was on, and to my suprise, not only did he believe me, he stopped the train at Saxilby to let me off ! The staff of BR at that time were outstanding.
|
