About three weeks ago my long-lost brother, Lord Mordechai Maurice Piggott, telephoned Lady P. and Your Lord out of the blue and invited us up to Cumbria for the weekend. Lord Mo has been missing for a number of years, so my wife and I decided to pay him a visit last weekend and duly booked our tickets for the train journey ‘up north‘.

Since it has been some years since we have travelled by train, we thought it would make a nice change to acquaint ourselves with Sir Richard's Virgin service.

After giving Grimes and the rest of my staff strict instructions to behave themselves and carry out their duties in our absence, we set off for Euston on Friday evening to make the 7.30 train from platform 13.

As we stood on the concourse waiting for the barrier to open, it was interesting to observe how the other half lives. People of all shapes, sizes and colours bustled around the concourse lugging their suitcases, bags and all manner of assorted travelling paraphernalia with them. On two occasions, my dear lady wife was nearly knocked over in the throng and only my sturdy arm prevented her from landing on her bottom. I began to think that perhaps we should have taken the Rolls and that mixing with the masses is not quite the done thing for a lord and lady, but instead of heading back home we decided to stay the course and board the train.

When it was announced over the tannoy that our train was now ready for passengers to board, I was amazed by the reaction of my fellow travellers. In what I can best describe as a stampede, hundreds of bodies hurtled towards the barrier in a state of frenzy. I can only presume the reason for their urgency was that the majority had not reserved seats, unlike Your Lord who is, like the perfect scout, always prepared.

Due to a temporary cash flow problem we have been experiencing due to the greedy bankers losing a big chunk of our readies, we had taken the chance of foregoing first class and instead booked seats in carriage D. We eventually found our carriage, boarded and made our way to find our seats. Luckily, we had no luggage as such because Lord Mo informed me on the telephone that he would provide everything we needed. Therefore our luggage consisted of one holdall between the two of us, containing some fresh undies and socks, that kind of thing. As we were only staying two nights, this was perfectly acceptable.

On finding our seats we discovered that we had the table variety which meant facing two fellow passengers. Fortunately, the elderly couple who were to be our silent travelling companions for the journey seemed pleasant enough as they were engrossed in The Times and The Telegraph.

My wife and I settled into our seats and shortly after that the train started on its way. I immediately reached for the latest tome I am digesting entitled ‘Methods Of Inflicting Severe Pain Without Leaving A Mark’, while Lady P. got her nose stuck into her ‘Take A Break’ magazine; well, nobody’s perfect, I suppose.

Having become absorbed in my very interesting and informative book, I was distracted by some chit-chat from the seats across the aisle. The perpetrators were two students aged around 18-years old, a male and a female. They were not a couple, it turned out, but two strangers who found they had very much in common; they both loved the same sort of music and bands and they went to great lengths to impress each other with their musical knowledge. Their voices were rather on the shrill side but I assured myself that after a few minutes or so this newly formed self-appreciation society would soon run out of things to talk about and I could once more lose myself in the pages of my book. How wrong I was.

Three hours into the journey and they were still chattering away, much to the annoyance of everyone in earshot, which was just about the whole carriage. Even the trusty foam earplugs that I had brought in case of just such an emergency failed to blot out their banal conversation and after reading the same lines three or four hundred times, I finally gave up and put away my literature. To be honest, most of the chin-wagging was being done by the boy. It was quite obvious that he fancied his new travelling companion rotten and was going to great lengths to impress her. All soon learnt his age, where he was born, where he went to school, what university he is attending and that he sings in a local group. We didn’t really learn much about the girl because by this time she had been hypnotised into simply repeating things like, “Wow, I LOVE that band too” and “I am SO jealous!”.

I wondered how long it would be before they exchanged telephone numbers but was surprised that, even when the carriage breathed a sigh of relief when the boy announced that he was nearly at his stop, neither had volunteered this information. It was only when he alighted and the girl did a sort of skip towards the buffet card that Lady P. whispered in my ear that he had slipped her - his new 'girlfriend', not my wife, I hasten to add - his mobile number written on an old train ticket. I must say, I had to admire his panache and it somewhat reminded me of myself in my younger days.

Not long after that, Lady P. and I arrived at our destination.

Tomorrow, I will give you a full account of life at Lord Mo’s.

Erastus