If you find travelling by rail enough of an ordeal already, what with the astronomical prices, inevitable delays, and soggy egg sandwiches which cost more than a night at the Ritz, it’ll be interesting to know how you feel about the latest addition to First Great Western’s network: a platform poet. Sally Crabtree will be entertaining passengers from Reading to Plymouth with improvised poems and songs about subjects chosen by commuters.
Ms Crabtree explains her unusual vocation by describing how ‘like many writers and poets, famously WH Auden, I am inspired by the reasons for our rail journeys – the human connections and stories involved’. Unlike WH Auden, Ms Crabtree appears to be donning a neon pink wig and matching basque as part of her poetry performance, but we don’t imagine this will even register with most of the passengers who will be plugged into their iPods and hiding behind their newspapers.
If you want to catch Sally, head for Reading, Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Barnstaple, Paignton or Plymouth stations on her three day tour beginning on the 14th. Makes a change from the usual trainspotting anyway. Get the NavPix here…
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