She finds herself peering along a central corridor with rows of three high-backed seats on each side, all facing her. The backs of the six front seats hide all but the rows in front. Beside one window a sturdy old man sits reading a newspaper published by the British Orthodox Communist Party. The teacher nods approvingly, for though never a Communist she approves of radical politics. Beside the old man is a housewife with a worried expression, beside the woman a restless little child wearing a blue canvas suit. The teacher, proud of her ability to read character at a glance, decides these are three generations of a family belonging to the skilled artisan class. Beside the opposite window a middle-aged, middle-class couple sit bolt upright staring straight ahead. They seem to be ignoring each other, but with another approving nod the teacher sees on the arm-rest between them the man’s left hand clasping the woman’s right. The teacher sits in the empty seat beside this couple, saying to nobody in particular, “I suppose modern trains look like aeroplanes because they travel nearly as fast! I regret that because I hate air travel, but I’m glad our compartment is close to the bit that pulls — the bit we called the engine in the days of steam. I feel safer when I’m near the driver.”
“My father feels that way too, though he won’t admit it. Will you Dad?” says the housewife, but the old man mutters, “Shut up Miriam.”
“I feel that too dear,” murmurs the rigid lady to her husband who murmurs, “I know you do dear. Please shut up.”
The teacher at once thinks of the married couple as Mr and Mrs Dear. Delighted to have started a conversation before the journey begins she says, “In most railway accidents the train is struck in the rear, isn’t it? So statistically speaking we are safer near the engine.”
“That’s stupid!” squeaks the child.
The mother says, “Don’t be rude Patsy,” but the teacher says eagerly, “Oh please, I’m a teacher! Retired! But I know how to handle difficult children. Why is what I said stupid Patsy?”
“Because in collisions the front of one train always hits the front or back of another, so the safest place in a train is always the middle.”
The old man chuckles slightly, the other adults smile. After a moment of silence the teacher opens her purse, removes a coin and says, “Patsy, here is a bright new silver-looking fivepound coin. I give it to you because what I said was stupid and you were right to correct me.”
The child grabs the coin. The other adults stare at the teacher and the conversation seems about to take a new direction when it is interrupted.
A melodious chime comes from the upholstery of the chair-backs then a quiet, firm, friendly voice saying, “Good day good people! This is Captain Rogers, your driver, welcoming you aboard the 1999 Aquarian from Bundlon to Shaglow, stopping at Bagchester, Shloo, Spittenfitney and Glaik. The Aquarian leaves at the end of this announcement, arriving at Bagchester exactly forty-one minutes later. Tea, coffee, sandwiches, will be served at half twenty-three hours, and in accordance with the latest stock-market reports, tea will be one point sixty pounds, coffee one point ninety-nine. Sandwiches are still last week’s price and expected to remain stable for the duration of the journey. The bar is now open. British Rail trust you will have a comfortable trip. Thank you.” Through the window on her left the teacher sees a pillar supporting the station canopy slide sideways, then a view of slate rooftops and shining tower blocks turning indistinct and vanishing.
The other passengers are complaining about the price of tea. The teacher says, “But I’m glad they warned us. When is half twenty-three hours? It’s a sign of senility for a retired teacher to admit this, but I can’t grasp this new way of telling the time.”
“Half past eleven, isn’t it?” says the housewife uncertainly.
“A.m?”
“Yes, isn’t it?”
The old man says abruptly, “Don’t be daft Miriam. Half twenty-three hours is twelve from twenty-three and a half, which is eleven and a half, so half past eleven p.m.”
“No no no!” cries the child excitedly, “Our headmaster says we shouldn’t think about time in twelves because of computers and demicals. Computers can’t count in demicals, so half twenty-three hours is half past twenty-three.”
“Patsy!” says the old man in a low steady voice, “If you say one more word within the next ten minutes I shall remove the whole weight of my fist from the side of your jaw!” but the teacher merely sighs. Then says, “I wish they had let us keep the old noon with the twelve hours before and after it. But even the station clocks have changed. Instead of a circular face with all the hours and minutes marked around the edge, past AND future, we have a square panel with nothing in it but the minute we’re at now. Nothing eight hours twenty minutes, then flick! — it’s nothing eight hours twenty-one. That makes me feel trapped. Trapped, yet pushed at the same time. And I’m sure computers could be taught how to count in twelves, I hear some of them are quite intelligent. I hate that little flick when one minute becomes the next.’
“I hate it too dear,” murmurs Mrs Dear and, “So do I dear, please shut up,” says her husband.
“Time and money!” says the teacher sighing again, “So much disappeared so suddenly: the little farthings with jenny wrens on them, thick brown threepennies, silver sixpences, the old ha’penny. Did you know, Patsy, that ha’pennies were once a whole inch in diameter, the size of the modern twopenny?”
“What’s an inch?” says the child.
“Two point five three nine nine nine eight centimetres. And the old pennies were lovely huge lumps of copper, two hundred and forty to the pound, we shall not see their like again, with Britannia ruling the waves between a small battleship and the Eddystone lighthouse. Britannia was a real woman, you know. Not many people realize that. She was copied from a — a girl friend of the Merry Monarch, not Nell Gwynne. The old pennies had room for so much history on them. They were history! Even in the sixties you still found coins with young Queen Victoria’s head on them, and the old Queen was so common we took her for granted. Just think! Every time we went shopping we were handling coins which had clinked in the pockets of Charles Dickens and Doctor Pritchard the poisoner and Isambard Kingdom Brunei.”
“It might interest you to know, madam,” says Mr Dear, “That the weight of a modern penny, subtracted from a pre-decimal penny, left enough copper to construct circuits for nine hundred and seventy-three pocket television sets.”
“But WAS IT?” shouts the old man so violently that everyone stares at him and Mr Dear says, “I beg your pardon?”
“The copper!” says the old man excitedly, “The copper saved by switching to a smaller currency was NOT used to make cheap television sets for the masses! It was used to build the circuits of an electronic nuclear defence system that cost the British tax-payer a hundred and eighty-three thousand MILLION pounds and was obsolete two years before it was finally installed!”
“I have no wish to discuss politics with you sir,” says Mr Dear, looking out the window again. The old man snorts and concentrates on his paper.