We put our son on the Caledonian Sleeper from Inverness to London last week, and wished we were going with him.
For two reasons: to chum him all the way south, and to enjoy tucking our knees in, as the great poet Norman MacCaig put it, as we lay in bed passing Aviemore.
Our boy wasn’t actually travelling all the way to London. Nor was he lying in one of those narrow, over-expensive beds. He’s a student, heading off to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, which meant two things – he couldn’t afford the bed, so made do with a seat, and he also had to decamp from the night train anyway at Crewe at 5am to catch an ongoing train to Cardiff, so it was hardly worth putting his pyjamas on.
The romance of a sleeper train
There’s something still terribly romantic about getting the sleeper, though, as I’ve done on several occasions, despite the heavy price. I invariably lie there, chuntering Auden’s wonderful lines as we clank through the night:
“This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order…”
It’s always best coming north, of course. Waking in the morning to the bonny purple heather, or to the Highland snow, outside the wee window.
It’s awful to think that this overnight service, which still takes you six nights a week (Saturday night excluded) from Aberdeen and Inverness and Fort William to London (and, more importantly, back), is periodically in danger of being closed down. It hasn’t happened yet, thanks to dear people like the great Liberal MP for the old county of Inverness, Mr Russell Johnston, who also fought against the closure in his day.
The terrible Beeching cuts of the 1960s decimated a widespread service throughout Scotland. Oh, how we regret those short-term measures which always put saving a penny before saving the planet. For with climate change, the world is at last realising that travelling together by train is much better than each of us cocooned in our solitary cars.
£395 for the train, £15 to fly
But, oh the price. As I said, our student son managed to get a seat on the night train, but if you want to go to London by bed tonight, it will cost you £220. Except it’s fully booked. And that’s just for the so-called “Classic Single Room”.
If you want the best bed – the Caledonian Double! – that will set you back £395. Though, as I write, these rooms are also all booked now until this time next week, Thursday October 14. Meantime, how come we can fly from Edinburgh to Copenhagen or Paris for £15? Put the service into public ownership and cut the prices by at least half, I say.
Now that we have all these extra well-paid (Green) ministers running Scotland, it’s time they established hospitality academies
Anyway, what I wanted to praise was the staff and service on the Caledonian Sleeper. They looked lovely and smart in their uniforms (is that a terribly unwoke thing to say?), but more importantly they were courteous and informed. And the restaurant was still there in all its beauty – well, not perhaps as glorious as in the old days – but folk could sit there and order a drink and a meal and be served in some style.
Thank God the service has not been reduced to a drink-and-sandwiches coin machine. Or to that self-service racket we now have everywhere, from supermarkets to hotel breakfasts, where we do the work of the shop and hotel, so that they save on staff and maximise their profits.
We need hospitality academies
I’m always appalled by the trough-like atmosphere of these self-service hotel buffet breakfasts. Folk piling sausage upon sausages on to their plates as if, despite their bellies, famine was just round the corner.
How much more civilised and dignified to sit at a well-laid out table and be served. Not by a slave but by someone who is trained and given status and respect and a proper wage for hugely important work. Other nations – France and Italy come to mind – treat service as a craft and as a career rather than as something servile and insignificant.
I know that because of Brexit and Covid our hospitality industry is suffering terribly. Now that we have all these extra well-paid (Green) ministers running Scotland, it’s time they established hospitality academies – as suggested recently by Don Lawson, chairman of Inverness Pub Watch – to train up a generation in the beautiful craft and art of serving a silver pot of tea and a braw scone or two.
For breakfast, as you climb the Drumochter Pass with your feet tucked in and your wallet empty.
Angus Peter Campbell is an award-winning writer and actor from Uist