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 NEWS, RAMBLINGS AND AWARDS                               NOVEMBER 2010

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OLD AGE DAWNS

I have a hair in my eyebrow
That does what it thinks is best,
It grows at a jaunty angle,
So different from the rest,
I try to brush it into line,
But then up pops its head,
Sometimes it seems to smile at me,
And fill me full of dread,
I feel that it may be a scout,
Leading the way for more,
Onslaught of bushy eyebrows,
Like Dennis Healey wore.

MALCOLM THE MASSIVE MIDGE - a story
And lo they entered a forest where the midges were huge. Such was their girth that it was at times difficult to tell whether particular trees were indeed trees or midges balancing malevolently on one hairy leg, which they were known to do to entrap walkers.
'I'll just have a wee rest here,' the walker would think as they nestled comfortably against one thick thigh.
Of course, if they were very observant they would have noticed the steelies. Trees very rarely wear steel toe-capped boots. But these monstrous midges did. This obvious flaw in their tree mimic ruse forced some midges to look for other tricks. A few gained skills with ropes, and before long three foot wide midges with steelies were leaping out of trees and landing on people's heads.
But that was long ago, in the days of sabre-toothed thingies and woolly wotsits. Nowadays, after the passing of many thousands of years, midges are just tiny things who fly around and bite walkers at will.
All, that is, except Malcolm.
Evolution seems to have passed Malcolm by. He still wears steelies, is still three foot wide, and still he leaps out of trees on a rope to attempt a landing on some poor walker's head.
The problem is, he's not very good at it. Quite often he will leap from the tree on a rope that is too short, and end up dangling well above the intended target. On other occasions his rope is too long and he falls to the ground in a bedraggled and bemused heap, a sight that is usually too much for most walkers who immediately take to their heels with cries of, 'Midges the size of cattle! Run for your lives...'
All of which makes one wonder how Malcolm's ancestral line was allowed to continue. Well, there is one good reason for that. And if you wish to know what that reason is, you will have to contact The Good Soup Guide to demand more on Malcolm.

THE GOOD SOUP GUIDE AWARDS FOR 2011
Much discussion is currently taking place with regard to next year's award winners. If you think you make and sell the best soup in Scotland, brew the best ale, run the best pub, or know of something exceptional like a visitor attraction or country walk, then let us know. While our opinion is rarely influenced, we should perhaps say that we would welcome samples of bottled ale brewed in Scotland so that we might come to a proper opinion with regard to the very best in the land. All samples of ale should be sent to Edward Burns, Flat 69, 57 Laurel Street, Glasgow, G11 7QU. Please email to give notice of delivery.

STOKING THE FIRE OF DISCONTENT
In this age of efficiency and targets, it’s very hard to imagine a time when railway station staff tended real coal fires in the waiting rooms of the travelling public.
Once upon a time you could have warmed your toes at the hearth while those at your beck and call bustled in the background making sure that every aspect of your journey was as pleasant as possible.
Nowadays there aren’t enough railway workers for bustling to take place to any great degree. And no real fires in waiting rooms.
I am reminded of this daily as I wait in the hovel tucked under the stairs on Platform Two of Stirling Railway Station. It is a cold harsh little room. Its one source of heat – a tiny convector heater – hangs from the ceiling and dispenses one-and-a-half minutes worth for each push of a button. Generally it is around the tenth episode of getting up off the icy metal seat to switch the thing back on that you realise you are in fact quite warm already.
This discontent is not a new thing.
Back in 1912 the citizens of this Gateway to the Highlands were becoming just a tad tired of sheltering ‘in the lee of the bookstall’ while wintry weather whooshed around them. They got themselves together, held meetings, and produced a pamphlet titled, Stirling’s Inadequate Railway Station.
‘The condition of Stirling’s Railway Station,’ it says, ‘has been a vexed question with the community and the travelling public for many long years.’
It is in this very lee of the old John Menzies bookstall that I also shelter. If the adjacent waiting room is open, I may take my frosty body inside and practise my aerobics with the fan-heater switch.
If I look at this room in which I find myself I see all kinds of things. I see wood panels that look quite old, and on their white-painted surface there are marks where shelving or counters were once placed right up against them. I see the curvature of the window area that looks out onto the platform. If I get up off my freezing seat and look real hard, I see that some of the glass windows are more recent replacements. I know this because the replacements are flat glass, while the originals bear a gentle curve that matches the curve of the structure. You wouldn’t notice it unless you really looked. Attention to detail is a trait that we have strangely left behind. 
If I wander outside and look up at the curving blue-painted panel above the windows I see ghosts of long-gone letters; there is a ‘Y’, an ‘E’ and other typographical remnants. I stand and stare while the past reveals itself. It was once an Enquiry Office. The same lost letters can be found above the door on the other side of the small structure. Right in this very place travellers would have spoken to smartly-dressed employees and been given information on which steam train would be leaving from which tidy platform. And all without the benefit of a sheet of toughened glass.
Sometimes I wait on Platform Three. From here I can get a better view of the exterior of the tiny structure on Platform Two. The curve that faces out onto the platform matches the curve of the adjacent old John Menzies shop (now WH Smith) whose shutters now sit firmly shut, its interior brought up to date with plastic and easy-to-clean surfaces.
If I move further along Platform Three, away from the Menzies echo on this platform, I see a rectangular window with a ledge. What once happened here, I wonder. Then I shift position and the low winter sun illuminates vague letters above the window. I can make out the words ‘CIGARS’ and ‘TOBACCOS’. I stand at the window and touch the small protruding wooden counter. It is worn smooth by the hands of many smokers. How many men, and women, have stood at this very spot and asked for some of the best black or shag to fill their pouch and pipe. Sigh, it’s changed days indeed. No tobacco stall, and no smoking even if there was.
One Saturday I thought to do some research into the station. In Stirling’s fine library I leafed through books and was suddenly looking at a picture of the rounded shelter on Platform 2. It was a picture taken sometime after the station was improved in 1916, and before it became an Enquiry Office. To my utter astonishment I saw the wording, ‘Campbell Ltd,’ above the curved frontage, and below was the open window of a grocer’s with boxes of produce spilling out on a shelf. I could never have imagined that my sorry shelter was once such a grand retail establishment.
You can witness the same backward progress at most railway stations in the country. At Perth, for example, wind whistles through its wonderful Victorian expanse while passengers huddle in Perspex boxes plonked on the platform. The once-used fireplaces are hidden in locked and dusty rooms full of character. At Bridge of Allan the sturdy old station is now a house, and passengers shelter from the elements in plastic monstrosities that don’t even have a proper seat. At Edinburgh’s Waverley, the magnificent wooden ticket-office that once sat under the glass dome has been replaced by a coffee-house. You can see how it used to look in a photo at the Bo’ness Railway Museum. It wasn’t a ticket-office. It was a palace. I could go on.
Every day I am reminded of our railway’s disrespect for the past as I hand over my ticket to the inspector on the train. In the good old days he would have popped a nicely-shaped hole in it with a metal punch. You knew your ticket had been checked. Now they mark it with a pen in a manner that suggests they are not so much examining your ticket as making sure their pen still works. Which is entirely understandable. Because you need some heat for ink to flow freely, and at times the carriages are cold. Like my little shelter under the stairs.

This article was written in 2008. I'm sure Stirling railway station, and other stations around the country, have improved immeasurably since then. Or have they? Tell us your story at thedemiseofourrailways@thegoodsoupguide.co.uk