The Blackpool Highflyer

'Where do the tickets come from?' I asked.

'From Headquarters in Manchester, of course,' said George. 'They're sent over here in parcels as needed.'

'All in number order?' I said.

'That's the idea: in number order, and parcelled in batches of two hundred and fifty.'

With none of the Fleetwood singles put away, George walked over to his revolving seat once more and sat down. Just as he did so, there was a passenger at the window, and he had to sell a ticket.

When the sale was complete, George pitched the coin into the wooden drawer and turned again towards me: 'They go in runs of ten thousand, you know,' he said, and then gave me a sideways look to see whether I did know. Well, I had a vague notion but didn't let on, so he continued talking like a penny book. 'It's the Edmondson ticket that's used. Has been for donkey's years. For every type – Liverpool singles, let's say – the run is ten thousand, but the system only allows four digits to be printed on the tickets so how can that be since ten thousand is five?'

I gave a shrug, for I really didn't know.George smiled. 'Rather a pretty little catch, en't it? Well, what's the number of the first ticket in a run, would you say?' 'One' I said, looking again at 'step on at goole for the continent'.

'Nought, nought, nought, one, you mean,' said George, 'because remember that even though you can't have more than four digits, you can't have fewer than that either.'

'I see,' I said.

'So that's your answer, is it? First one in a run's nought, nought, nought, one?'

'Yes,' I said.

'Quite sure of it, are you?'

'Well it's obviously not,' I said, 'from the way you're carrying on.'

George was grinning like a street knocker.

'Very well then,' I said, 'what is the first number in the run?'

'Fish and find out,' said George, and he spun around in his chair.

I could have brained him there and then. 'I give it up,' I said.

'Oh come on,' he said. 'Take a shy.'

Something I'd read in the Railway Magazine came back to me, and I knew the answer, but I had a queer feeling that it would have been quite crushing to George if I'd come out with it, so I said again: 'No. Can't work it out.'

In celebration of his victory, George gave one more spin on his chair, and said: 'The first number's nought, nought, nought, nought. That way, the last one's the ten thousandth even though its number's only nine, nine, nine, nine. I must say, old man, it should be no riddle to anyone of normal intelligence. It's a very good thing you're not in this line of work.'

I was not having this. I had let him have his victory, and now he was making me eat dog over it. 'Well, I knew that all along,' I said.

'Oh leave off,' said George. He sat still in his chair, took his cigar out of his waistcoat and looked at it. 'See that the cigar bears the name of the registered star band,' he muttered quietly to himself, and when he looked up at me again, his he said, 'I'll buy the ticket myself, as long as it's not a really expensive one like a First to Liverpool, and then I'll let you have it, old man. Gratis. Folks will give worlds to get 'em.'

'Well,' I said, 'no need to trouble yourself over that.'

I wanted to put our little set-to behind us, and I thought of a question that would help me do it: 'You said there was some trouble over the tickets coming in?'

'It's just this,' said George. 'Some blockhead in Manchester keeps sending us short batches – causes the devil of confusion, puts all the ledgers out. It would turn your hair pink in streaks if you knew the half of it… everybody kept back hours after booking off time… as if it's not bad enough, being stuck in this poky hole.'

I looked again at the steam packet on the Goole poster, and, to change the subject, said: 'I have hopes of taking the wife to Goole.'

George nodded. 'As a shipping centre, it's hard to beat,' he said. 'The barges go along the canal like trains – all tied together, and when the ride is right there's some big ships to see.'

'The company keeps its own fleet of steam packets there I believe,' I said. 'It's a bigger show than Fleetwood, and I've not yet been out that way.'

George looked at me very gravely for a while, then took his plunge: 'Would you like a ticket for yourself and Mrs Stringer?'

'Staff privilege, you mean?'

George nodded.

'Well, I have my footplate pass for getting back from turns, but staff priv… Three a year you're allowed if you're an engine man, and you've got to put in for them weeks in advance. They're like gold dust, aren't they?'

'They are rather,' said George.

I tried to keep a carefree tone, but I had a bad feeling over this. 'And they must be signed by Knowles,' I said.

George nodded solemnly once again. 'I put 'em under his nose, and he generally signs 'em without looking.'

'Well -' I said.

'Only sometimes I don't bother.' George picked up a pen, stood up again and walked across to one of the racks – the one holding the staff-privilege tickets. He flicked a ticket out from the bottom and returned to the ticket window with it. He had burnt his boats now, for he would not be able to put it back except at the top of the stack, and then it would be out of order. 'I know Mr Knowles has got a lot on, and so to ease his burden a little I sometimes do the job myself,' said George. He was waving his pen over the blank ticket, working himself up to the moment, and I was looking at a new George. Except that somehow his being a little on the fly was not so very great a surprise.

'It's quite all right, old boy,' I said, thinking to soften the blow of my refusal by putting it in his own sort of swell talk.

'Oh that's quite all right,' said George in turn, putting his pen back into his coat pocket. He then began walking back over to the rack from which he'd taken the ticket. 'I was only skylarking in any case,' he went on. 'Now of course, it does sometimes happen that we take one out, and it turns out not to be needed…' He laid the ticket on the little ledge at the foot of the column from which it had come. 'So it stays there until it is required.'

I could've split, and George would have been stood down immediately, with worse to follow. So in a way I should've felt flattered, because he was showing me trust.

'Do you know what I'm going to have in my apartments at Back Hill Street?' George asked, suddenly.

'Your room, do you mean?'

'Damask curtains. I've got a mind to have 'em,' he said, standing up, 'so I'm jolly well going to have 'em.'

I nodded. 'The wife doesn't really hold with curtains,' I said. I wanted to keep talking to get the ticket business behind us. 'She won't do things in a sixpenny way,' I said. 'She must have the best of everything, and so she will wait until opportunity calls.'

'And do you know what's wanted in this office?' said George.

I shrugged, still a little dazed.

'What's wanted is a revolving ticket cabinet to go next to this revolving chair. That would save me having to sail backwards every time.'

'Wouldn't things become a little confusing, with you and the tickets both revolving? You might end up going one way, the tickets another.'

George stood up and walked over to the window. 'Glad to know your view on the matter,' he said, but of course he wasn't in the least. He looked through the window for a while, before turning to me and saying: 'Shall we go and watch the photographer?'

'But what about anyone coming to buy a ticket?' I said, at which George turned about and slammed down the hatch.

'They can buy 'em on the trains,' he said. He then lobbed a small amount of coin into the money drawer and took out another ticket from the racks. This he handed to me. 'Take it,' he said. 'It's a present. All paid for.'

It was the third-class single to Todmorden mentioned earlier: number 1234.

'Thanks,' I said.

'Come on,' said George, who was holding the booking- office door open for me.