Viva La Deva

I’m writing this on my MacBook with a latte in Starbucks, because I am just that awful.  It’s not just any Starbucks though: it’s Chester Starbucks, a coffee shop that I used to be a frequent visitor to.  Every now and then, before work, I’d wander in and get myself a Caramel Macchiato and a cinnamon swirl to eat at my desk as a breakfast treat.  I was such a regular that the barista finally offered me a discount, because I worked in the city centre; unfortunately it was literally on my last day working in Chester, but the thought was much appreciated.

They’ve done it up a bit since I was last here.  The front is far more open, a plate glass window, and they’ve finally installed decent air conditioning.  And the toilets are actually quite decent, for once.  Why do Starbucks have the very worst lavatories in the world?  They aim for sophistication up front, all matey barista banter and limited blends, and then you go to the loo and it's worse than a toilet in a French service station.

Across from me is a man in a tartan tam o’shanter reading the Daily Record; I think he may be Scottish.  There’s also a pair of dreadful old bores who are referring to the Prime Minister as "Mrs May" in a way that makes me think they call women "pretty young ladies" and share risque jokes at the golf club about the barely out of her teens barmaid.

I’m in town for reasons far too dull to go into here.  I was on the first train out of Hooton, meaning to transfer to a different service at Chester to head into North Wales, but my schedule is light and I can get any train along the coast, so I decided to jump off the train at Bache.  We have history, me and Bache.  When I worked in Chester city centre, I used to get off the train there, then walk into town.  It was a pathetic attempt at getting some exercise into my life, an effort rather undercut by the fact that I then had the aforementioned Caramel Macchiato and cinnamon swirl when I hit town.  It was also the second station I ever visited for this blog, back in the far off days of 2007 when I was just visiting the Merseyrail stations on the Northern and Wirral lines.  Back before I became obsessed.  (If you click that link, incidentally, you'll see a picture of me when I was still in my skinny twenties, all chin and forehead).

The only thing that's changed about Bache station is the giraffe ALF board I mentioned in my old blog has long gone.  The rest is the same, two platforms wedged round the back of Morrison's.  I crossed the tracks via the overbridge, which probably hasn't been painted since I was last here, and down into the car park.  

Funny how quickly your brain slips back into the old routines.  Muscle memory guided me round to the pedestrian exit from the car park, across the road, and onto the Liverpool Road into the city centre.  Sometimes, if I was feeling a bit adventurous, I'd head down the suburban streets the other side of the railway line, crossing Brook Lane and coming out round the back of the Northgate Arena, but today I stuck to the favoured route.  

In the old days I'd have been here about ten past eight, breathing the fumes from nose to tail traffic, but today it was six thirty and quiet.  I crossed at Lumley Road - of course I thought of Joanna, instantly - and continued past big homes hidden behind trees.  Many of them had been repurposed now, acquired by the hospital or the university, name boards tucked at the end of the drive to let you know about their new purpose.  A bus trundled by, not even pausing for me, even though I was right by a stop, the driver keen to get into town for a break.

At the Queen's School, I crossed the road.  When I commuted, crossing was a struggle, the harassed drivers unwilling to pause to let a pedestrian break their grim faced morning routine.  Now I practically sauntered across, past the glass fronted Total Fitness that occasionally gave me a tantalising glimpse of some speedo clad hunk (but more often than not gave me a view of a large lady in a psychedelic one piece), and past the site of Liverpool Road station.

There used to be a railway line passing across the top of Chester, from the Northgate station - now the leisure centre I mentioned earlier - through Liverpool Road and Blacon and then joining up with what is now the Borderlands Line above Hawarden Bridge.  The railway line lasted a surprisingly long time; passenger services were axed by Beeching in the sixties, but freight trains continued until 1992.

It's hard to conceive of trains passing through today, now that it's been surrounded by trees and aspirational apartment blocks.  Every now and then I think about walking the route, just to trace it again, skirting the edge of the city centre and ending up at Mickle Trafford.  

Half the sponsors on that board don't even exist any more.

Further on, the University buildings really start to build up.  It was originally a teacher training college, established by the Church of England, but it became a University in 2000 and has swelled rapidly.  Perhaps it's the glamour of Hollyoaks tempting young people to head to an educational establishment with the potential for plenty of casual sex and the odd murder.  There was a cut through at the bottom of Liverpool Road, an old road too narrow for cars that dropped down to Parkgate Road, but a few years ago a wall collapsed onto the pathway.  As with almost everything else in Chester, the walls were found to be incredibly old and incredibly fragile, so rather than risk them toppling on an innocent student they closed off the pathway completely.

Passing the not-at-all-amusingly-named Gaymoore Close I was surprised to see the garage nearby had closed.  Even more surprisingly, now the trappings of the service station had been stripped away, it turns out there was a fine Victorian villa hiding underneath.  There's another wonderful villa on the other side of the road, with a stained glass orangery at the side; I was upset to see that it was undergoing work, and the glass roof was open to the elements.  I hope there is a Heritage Officer from the Council making sure that it's restored exactly as it was.

I was pleased to see the fountains at the Fountains Roundabout were actually turned on for once, as I descended into the underpasses beneath.  Underpasses are never nice.  There isn't a single one on this planet that doesn't carry a vague sniff of urine.  The ones beneath the ring road in Chester were built with ambition, to try and stop them from turning into the usual rape alleys.  The one at the bottom of Brook Street leads into a submerged garden beneath the roundabout, while the Fountains underpass sends you through a central circulation area.  

There's something bleakly futuristic about it, a bit Clockwork Orange, a bit THX-1138. The roar of the fountains fills the space.  In the ceiling, plexiglass domes are set into the ceiling, meant to let in light but now covered with dirt and mould to turn the sunlight brown.

The top of Northgate Street has changed beyond recognition since I was last along here.  There's a huge student residence on the ring road - built as a Travelodge, but closed barely a year later - and opposite the old bus station has disappeared beneath a hefty office block.  Sadly, the Bull & Stirrup - a regular haunt for me and the BF; the very first time I ever visited Chester we met up there - was closed up, its windows covered by metal grilles.  

Across the canal and under the Northgate, one of the city's ancient entrance points and part of the Roman Walls.  Chester is the only city in Britain to still have its entire run of walls still in one piece, thanks to an eternal fear of rampaging Welshmen wandering across the border to pillage.  Behind the gate is Chester's oldest gay bar, the LA (I still call it the Liverpool Arms, because I'm ancient).  I'm not sure what the status of the city's other gay bar is, the subtly named Bar Six T Nine.  Gay bars are falling away now; Grindr and Gaydar and other, more niche, internet sites have taken away the traditional way of meeting other homos (standing by the bar until you're so drunk you just go home with the first person who says hello).

I wandered down Northgate Street, noticing the new shops, the new restaurants, which ones had updated their signs, which ones looked exactly the same as they always did (the Cheese Shop).  My job at Chester City Council had meant dealing with a lot of these businesses, and over the years, I grew to know them by heart.  I could practically list from memory the shops on the streets within the walls, one after the other.  When I left I stayed away from the city for a long time, just so that I could lose those memories.  I needed to come back to Chester with a blank slate.

  

Town Hall Square still looked the same, dominated by William Lynn's town hall, its three faced clock  tower still refusing to give Wales the time of day.  (By the way, no, you can't shoot a Welshman within the walls after sunset - that's murder, and no ancient law can get you out on a technicality).  I looked up when I left my job here, and I was shocked to realise it was eight years ago: I shared my leaving do with a girl who was going on her maternity leave.  That child will be old enough to join the Cubs now.  It's still all there, tucked in my mind, though.  It's nearly eight thirty as I type this.  In the old days this would be when I arrived at my office in the Forum, finding a space amidst the mess of papers, settling in for a day's work.  Instead I'm going to head to the seaside.  Much better, I think.

Four Way Split

Take a train.

Stand on the platform 1 at Hamilton Square and take a train.  At that point, it'll just be a Liverpool train.  It'll have Liverpool on the sign board on the front and the automated voice will tell you "This train is for ... Liverpool Central.  The next station is... James Street."  You'll pass under the river and then it'll change. That Liverpool train will magically shift its state and become something else.  Without you even noticing, your surroundings will transform, morph, and suddenly you're going somewhere else.  All without leaving your seat.  At James Street, you'll learn where you're going.

"This train is for... Chester.  The next station is... Moorfields."

It looked like I was heading for Chester, then.  I was playing a game.  I'd decided, for no reason at all, to travel all over the Wirral Line.  I was going to go to each of its termini, just riding the rails.  Just taking in the route.

I got a seat at Liverpool Central.  The guard and the computer voice beg you to leave the train at James Street for Liverpool ONE, and some do, but it still hasn't caught on properly.  People still cling to Central as the heart of the city - good news for the Central Village development, when it eventually shows up.  I wonder if it's the name.  If Bold Street or Ranelagh Street would get the same volumes of traffic; if people are just conditioned to go that way by the name.  Two tourists clamber off the train, carting bikes, nervously checking out the line diagram to make sure they're in the right place.  A woman helps them; she got on at Moorfields with hair still damp from the stylist.  As we leave the station she fingers her new style anxiously, still unsure about it.

There's a blue spark as we cross the junction, and the lights vanish, and then we're back at Hamilton Square again.  A nurse boards and sits in the bank of seats across the aisle from me.  She crosses her sensibly shod feet and flicks through an Argos catalogue, letting it fall open on random pages, then urgently moving it on again.  She drops it on the dead Metro beside her as we break out of the tunnel into Birkenhead Central. Sunlight, but no sunshine; a grey murk and the threat of drizzle.  There's a train stabled alongside the southbound platform, the Councillor Jack Spriggs.

Green Lane is almost empty, as usual.  There's a single waiting passenger on the Liverpool platform.  He's sat in the shelter with a little lunch beside him on the bench, a can of Dr Pepper, a packet of ready salted.  The train squeaks and groans as it clambers up the incline, a ridiculously steep gradient that takes the train from underground to an embankment.  We're suddenly over the top of gardens and rooftops and basketball courts.  A quote on a wall - John 3:16 - God loved us so much He gave us His only son.  Whoever puts their trust in him will not be lost but will have eternal life.

At Rock Ferry, we pull alongside a train heading the opposite way, and I look through into a mirror image.  A boy with a rock star haircut and a leather jacket sullenly takes up a seat, earbuds jammed deep inside his skull.

This is, in its own way, my line, the one I travelled on the most.  Twice a day, there and back, to my job in Chester.  It's such a long time ago now.  It doesn't feel familiar any more.  I can't do the timings in my head any more - I can't work out where we are just from the view out the window.  The summer foliage confuses me too.  In my head, this trip is always cold, frosty, on a grey morning where you can see your breath.  Two men in high-vis suits are opening a drain cover at Bebington.  Some parkland, longer back gardens from a time when houses weren't squeezed on top of one another, and then Port Sunlight.  The concrete square of the Unilever building hangs over the track, ugly and basic, exiled to the western side of the tracks away from the pretty village.

The green cage for cycle parking at Spital has a single bike in it.  A man leans against the cage, red woollen hat, hoodie, drinking coffee from a silver thermos and looking like he wants to be back in bed.  The guard passes through without checking our tickets and doesn't close the connecting door properly behind him.  It clatters and thuds with the movement of the train until the braking at Bromborough Rake makes it click into place.  The trees that over hang the platform here have made it wet and slick with fallen yellow leaves.  A man with a double buggy tries to control it on the steep ramp, while excited babies wave from the front.

The guard comes back - still no ticket check - but he closes the door properly this time.  The doors open at Bromborough with a clatter of key and a sigh of pneumatics, then he leans against the glass partition with his head tilted back until Eastham Rake.  The grey concrete walls here still jar, twenty years after they were put up.  They're aggressively urban after the pretty quasi-rural halts that preceded it.  The paint at the base of the fences is flaking.

Under the motorway, across the county line, the ugly industry of Hooton.  Network Rail vans parked in a compound.  Hooton always meant halfway to me: it took as long to get from home to here as it took to get from Hooton to Chester, even though there were hardly any stations.  The driver opens up the train to maximum, enjoying the long stretch without stopping.  It pounds the rails, engine whining, whistling.  Anonymous, secretive cubes at Capenhurst, protected by double rows of razor wire.  Cranes extending it and its hidden uses.

The smell of pollen and wild flowers bursts through the open windows.  Count the road bridges, the places where the noise of the train amplifies suddenly, then the BANG as another train hammers past, air colliding with air.  For a brief moment, I can see across the plains to Wales, purple mountains rising up.  The little stubs of platform that are all that remains of Upton-by-Chester station and we're approaching Bache - "Leave the train here for the Countess of Chester hospital" says the computerised voice, but she sounds like she's been cut off, like she wanted to say more but someone took her mic away.  The train sighs as it rolls towards Chester, as though it knows this is the end.  Allotments, apartments, then a junction and a depot and an expanse of railway lands.

More tourists on the platform at Chester, Italian and Spanish, pulling suitcases and calling noisily to each other.  I take a seat and let the train leave.  When I worked here there wasn't anywhere to sit, just window sills you'd lean on, hollows carved in the stone by a hundred years of buttocks.

My train back is named: Operations Inspector Stuart Mason, a refreshingly banal title.  There's another dead Metro on the seat across from me and an open bag of Tesco pistachio nuts.  It's been opened along the side, and is full of discarded pistachio shells; I imagine someone moving the bag to sit down and inadvertently showering everyone, so I move it to the metal edge of the seat.  Two Scouse lads are "sick" of Chester, and are retreating back to Liverpool.

"A few bevs?"

"A few bevs."

"Magnet?"

"Magnet."

They rest their feet on the seat cushions as the doors beep and we move away.  It seemed like there was hardly any time between trains.  I notice a new sign for the drivers at Bache - REMINDER: Do you stop at Capenhurst? - and I realise I haven't seen Bache's ALF, my very first ALF, the one with the quizzical giraffe.  Is it still there?

We do stop at Capenhurst, and then I jump off at Hooton.  I'd thought about going all the way up, round the loop and back again, but the thought of seeing all the same stations over and over depresses me.  Instead I nip to the M to Go for a bottle of water.  The men in there are bantering with the station manager as she buys a coffee from the machine.  "Have you had any complaints because it doesn't do tea?"

"A couple.  But it's Costa, in'tit?"

"Yeah, but if you go into a Costa shop you can get a tea, can't you?"

"Do you want a cup of tea?" the larger of the men explodes, mock exasperated, his moustache quivering.  "I'll make you a cup of tea!"

I take up a seat by some discarded crisps.  A tall man and his girlfriend scurry along the platform - "fourteen minutes!" - and he spits heartily onto the track, presumably to clear his throat ready for the cigarette.  They sit further down and he puts dance music on the speaker of his phone for everyone to enjoy.  Fortunately it's mostly drowned out by the traffic on the motorway and the road bridge.  Another man, anxious, tiny, with a red backpack dangling off his shoulders: with his khaki trousers and neat blue shirt he looks like a very polite explorer.

A Liverpool train passes through, then a Chester train, then quiet again.  A robin lands close to my feet and eyes me up.  It wants to pick at those crisps, and I haven't moved, so I don't seem to be a threat.  It watches me for a little bit, then hops around some more, dancing round the potential meal, trying to estimate my danger levels.  The Ellesmere Port train clatters into the platform, and he whirls up into the air; lunch will have to wait.

Two businessmen are ahead of me on the train.  The bald one, head shaved and shining, barks into a mobile until the signal fades.  He turns to his colleague to complain, first about the phone, then about his missing pens.  "No-one ever puts a pen back in that office."

"What was that one you had?"

"It was a lovely silver Parker pen.  Just vanished.  Bastards."  They commiserate each other on their missing stationery, pads, pens, claimed by unscrupulous types without morals.

Little Sutton's much improved since I was last here.  The local schoolchildren have been let loose, and now the panels over the bricked up windows are bright and colourful.  A copy of Lord Kitchener wants YOU to join him at the station.  The two businessmen have moved onto their boss, his incompetence and his unfriendliness, but their Scouse vocabulary still comes through in their speech, resulting in strangely personable threats - "The more he does it, the more I think, fuck you, mate."  They alight at Overpool, along with a surprising amount of the train.

The last stretch to Ellesmere Port passes terraces, a siding with Network Rail men clambering over the tracks, blocks of flats.  The station building is wrapped in scaffolding and hoardings, in the process of being upgraded to contain a cafe and community space.  Until then We apologise for any inconvenience during improvement works.

I'd thought about hanging around and getting the next train out, as at Chester, but Ellesmere Port's an unfriendly place.  The platform had people waiting on it who didn't seem to want to board the train, who regarded it as an intrusion.  They smoked cigarettes and eyed it suspiciously, craned over the handlebars of bikes.  I got back on the same train I came in on, along with a gang of students from the local college.  They open cans of energy drinks in unison, a little chorus of hisses, enough to keep them alive for the trip home.  A harassed man boards at Overpool, with flyaway hair and a nervous chew on his bottom lip.  Union Jack flying in a garden at Little Sutton; a collapsed outhouse and weeds next door.

One of the students is holding forth about Tube trains, and his experiences on them.  They're tiny, but the new ones are better - "they're bright and modern, like this train."  I imagine that would please Merseyrail.  We pass through the deep sandstone cutting at Hooton and he moves onto the lack of etiquette on the Underground: "everyone's pushing.  There's no consideration at all."  He's so busy with his rant about That London, they almost miss their station, and have to run to get off at Hooton.

The guard does a ticket check, nodding his and thanking you for each orange square, and we head back over the familiar line again.  "We are now approaching Spital" will never stop sounding revolting.  Every station has the green GoGoGo! cycling banner and a cage for bikes; hardly any are in use.  The man at Green Lane left his empty crisp packet and Dr Pepper can behind when he caught the train; they're like a shed snakeskin on the seat.

I close the loop at Hamilton Square, passing through the same platform I boarded from ages ago.  Now that they're endangered I feel affectionate towards the brown plastic seats - part of me hopes there's not enough money to redevelop these last couple of stations.  Lime Street is skipped again, its platform covered in a tent of scaffolding poles and fences, the new white panels checkerboarded with blank holes.

I get off at Liverpool Central to use the loo.  It's the second best place to have a pee in the city centre now, clean and efficient and with Dyson Airblades.  (The best place to pee is John Lewis because you don't need a train ticket to use them).

Back down to the platform.  It's rowdy down there; the races are on at Chester, and suits and posh frocks are tottering around after being in the pub.  They're noisy and excitable and I am ridiculously pleased when they all get on a train and leave.  An old woman tells her grandson to sit in the empty seat between me and a heavy man with a briefcase.  She's wearing leopardskin and pulling a pink wheely-suitcase.  I stood up to offer her my seat but she waved me back down.  "He's just come from the hospital, otherwise we'd both stand up," she explains, but I see her take my seat when I get on the train.  The man with the briefcase made no move to offer his seat at all.

The guard informs us in thick, guttural Scouse that this is the New Brighton train.  There's a school party spread along the platform at James Street, legs out in front of them, waving at us as we pass.  Across from me, in the bike seats, a woman in a blue cagoule eats a packet of cheese and onion Snack a Jacks with a slow deliberation.  Each rice cracker is held between two fingers and slowly raised to her mouth; she considers it, then crunches her way through it, before reaching for the next one.  She's wearing pinstripe trousers and girlish pumps over white socks.

She gets off at Conway Park, which is black.  While I've been underground a storm has crashed into Birkenhead, and the canyon of a station seems to be battered by it.  The brightly lit strips with the nameplate on it shine even more distinctively, like beacons.  An imperious looking man alights at Birkenhead Park - he could be Colin Firth's stunt double for The King's Speech, if there were any actual stunts - and then onto Birkenhead North.  People in hoods, like ETs, hunched over themselves, dart across the rain-strafed platform and onto the train.

The driver toots his horn as we pass the depot.  Long chains of carriages stretch alongside us, with a Beatles Story train looking unfeasibly bright next to its yellow and grey siblings.  Its psychedelic colour scheme is completely out of place in the middle of this barren stretch of railway and weeds.  Round the back of the retail park and under the motorway, then up onto the viaduct and Wallasey Village station.  A bamboo screen has been erected along the platform to shield the houses below from nosy commuters.  It gives the station an incongruously tropical air, exotic like a jungle hut.

A sign says that Wallasey Grove Road "is tended and cared for by the Edible Wirral Partnership" but the beds look tired, and there are weeds everywhere.  Perhaps they're "encouraging wild flowers" and a "bee friendly" environment, like I am on that corner of the garden I can't be bothered with.  The backs of apartment slabs, then the first glimpse of the sea at New Brighton.  It's thick and grey, unappealing under the drive of the rain, and Seaforth is hidden under mist.  There are more sandstone stripes in the cutting, fossil beds laid on top of one another, then the train clunks and shudders and we're in the station.

A couple of workmen are fixing the CCTV in the station building as I cross to the bookshop over the road.  I thought I would kill time in here until the next train, but it's too small and crowded, and the staff are too cheery.  I didn't feel relaxed enough to browse; I felt like I was being watched, and they were ready to jump in with help and conversation.  Only as I leave do I realise that the woman behind the counter is dressed as a pirate.

I leave and get back on the train.  It clicks furiously, as though a cricket was trapped under the wheels.  Dots of rain fall through the window and smudge the ink in my notebook.  At Grove Road, schoolkids with blazers over their head to hide from the rain get on board, and then another load at Village.  A banner advertising the Railpass has a picture of a man whispering into a woman's ear; someone has poked out her eyes, leaving her with two black spaces either side of her nose.  It somehow makes her look sarcastic, as though she's listening to the man and thinking "Christ, not this again."

Most of the kids get off at Birkenhead North, thankfully, changing to the West Kirby line no doubt.  A neatly dressed man gets on at Birkenhead Park in an outfit that positively gleams.  Everything looks new and crisp; shiny shoes, pressed trousers, a white jacket that's unscuffed.  I decided that he was off for a night out on the pull, making himself look the very best he could, but then he got off at Conway Park and torpedoed my theory.  No-one dresses up for a night out on the pull in Birkenhead - it's not worth the effort.

Four Network Rail men get on the train at Hamilton Square; clocking on or knocking off, I wonder?  I get off with them at Moorfields, and they look around for the lift - "I'm not fucking walking."

I'd decided to change at Moorfields because I thought it would complete the set of underground stations.  Only as I stood on the platform did I remember that I hadn't been to James Street.

Final leg now.  The train hits Central, and fills immediately; it's four o'clock on a Friday and the office workers with flexi time are out of there.  There's a crisp packet on the seat in front of me, cheese and onion, the artificial flavourings still lingering in the air.  It's passed to the neighbouring seat by a little round woman with a severe red bob.  She produces a historical epic from her bag, cracks the spine and begins reading.  Then the crisp bag is passed on again, to the seat next to me, by a trim pensioner carrying a hot pink handbag.  She's wearing open toed sandals and probably regrets it.

Further on in the carriage two teenage girls are showing their mum their purchases, delving into carrier bags and producing the treasures inside.  A shoebox is taken out and a single trainer is put up for the others to coo over.  A bikini is taken out of a Primark carrier: "Is that for your holiday?"

Through the tunnel again, a pause at Hamilton Square.  The young stylish couple across the way are big on public displays of affection.  Their bodies are rammed together, tight designer jeans swathed around touching knees.  She clutches her iPhone in a fist, its screen strobing across her clothes.  A cyclist boards and the standing commuters shuffle uncomfortably to let him on, but no-one moves the crisp bag on the seat next to me.

The stylish girl's coat slips from her shoulder as we move off again, revealing a pale shoulder under a white vest top.  She gazes out into the carriage through panda eyes, until her boyfriend reclaims her, pulling her back in for another kiss.  At Birkenhead Park there's a chirrup of phones as the signals are recovered, and a corresponding movement of arms into pockets to retrieve messages.  A schoolboy pushes the crisp packet onto the floor and takes the seat next to me, but sitting sideways, tapping at his lime green Blackberry with a well-practised thumb.  It plinks and beeps, new messages covering up his Everton football club wallpaper.

There's a thud as we clonk over the junctions and pass round the back of the giant Tesco Extra.  Bidston station is swathed in netting and building work.  The couple squeeze their way off the train, holding hands.  I can smell thick, cheap aftershave; I suspect it comes from the teenager next to me, spritzing himself anxiously all day to fight off adolescent sweats.  He receives a picture message but can't work out what it is: after turning his mobile a few times he replies with "?".

Someone is talking behind me in an Asian language, Mandarin or Cantonese or something, having half a conversation we can't understand.  That's the third foreign language I've heard on the train today, and it doesn't include the incomprehensible Glaswegian at Chester or the treacle thick Scouse accent.  There are flats at Leasowe I don't remember having seen before, but it's been a long time since I came this way, a very long time.  The boy and the pensioner both get off at Moreton, and the woman with the bob swings round, riding the rest of the journey side saddle so she can stretch her legs.

There's a stretch of unlikely countryside between Moreton and Meols, with paddocks and Shetland ponies and meadows.  The rain returns, but listlessly this time, falling against the window in splatters.  We pass over the barrow crossing before Manor Road, the one that seems to claim a victim every year, and then we're at the station proper.  It's nearly six years since I collected the station, but I suddenly remember being here, coming down the steps to the platform, listening to the Coral on my iPod.

Hoylake is pretty, of course, and probably about to get a makeover ready for the return of the Open next year.  Then the train clears its throat and rumbles, readying itself for a rest at the terminus.  The neatly mown expanse of the golf course provokes a burst of energy in the carriage.  Books are tidied away, bodies stretch, phones are produced and "I'm just coming into the station now" seems to be on everyone's lips.  At West Kirby I tip onto the last station of the day, the last branch, the end of the line.

I text Jamie.  Fancy a pint?

Bridge Work

The works at Hooton have finally come to a halt, and this somewhat remote, outlying station has a new look. Hooton's always suffered from being important as an interchange, but lying in the middle of nowhere: in addition, it's in Cheshire, but comes under Merseytravel, for reasons I've never fully understood.

As a result it's been a bit unloved and abandoned. Finally, various agencies have got together and the station's received a great injection of cash and development, and it's become a station worth the name.

It's not just the MtoGo shop and public toilets, though those help with the new feel. It's amazing how much brighter and friendlier the MtoGo makes the station - the white and yellow decor combined with the open till (no hiding behind three inches of glass here) is a real boon. And Merseyrail should be applauded for putting toilets in their stations at a time when everyone else is closing them down.

The major work has been on a brand new footbridge. Because of the station's layout, every rail user had to use a footbridge to access the trains. It was built out of wood, and had no access for the disabled whatsoever, meaning that the mobility impaired or people with prams and bikes would have a major struggle on their hands. In addition, it was cold and wet, with frequent drips coming through the ceiling.

Well, it's gone now.

Those white marks on the road bridge are the only sign it was ever there. Instead, at the opposite end of the platform, a defiantly 21st century footbridge has risen in its place.

Confident and a little brash, the new footbridge is a bit out of place to me: it wouldn't look out of place at Eastham Rake, up the line, but the Victorian station building clashes with it. Perhaps it's just the shock of the new.

Certainly it's hard to argue that the facilities aren't an improvement.

Wide open, brightly coloured steps (the Colour Tsars have been right in on this scheme from the start) leading up to a broad bridge with a easily cared-for floor. The platforms are signposted in the new grey and yellow Merseyrail house style.

Of course, the biggest improvement is the provision of lifts to all the platforms, making Hooton fully accessible for everyone for the first time.

I'm not keen on the open bridge and staircase, meaning that rain and wind can get inside. Hooton is surrounded by fields and an open car park, and the wind can be pretty brutal. It's also the place where broken down trains are likely to be stabled, and passengers forced to wait for an interchange - over the years I've been forced to wait on the platform for a replacement train when my Chester service has given up the ghost. In these circumstances, the platform rapidly fills up. Yes, there are waiting rooms on each platform, but when three cars of commuters have been deposited, they'll soon be a sardine tin.

On the old footbridge, people tended to move onto the steps to shield themselves from the elements. That's no longer possible, as the gaps in the sides mean you'll be buffeted anyway. Plus I can't help thinking that the nice shiny floor will rapidly become slippery in a November rain storm.

That's a minor niggle, though: the footbridge is so much better than what was there before.

In addition, a cycle store has been built, and in a first, I could actually see bikes in it. These green cages have appeared all along the Wirral Line but they always seem to be forlornly empty: Hooton bucks the trend. Though it seems that some people are still too cheap to pay the deposit for the key, and have just tied their bike up outside.

Bravo to everyone involved in the new look Hooton - Merseyrail, Merseytravel, Network Rail and the Department of Transport. It feels like a rejuvenated destination. (And bravo for them keeping the ALF, and not chucking it in a skip once it was rebuilt - I'm looking at you, Southport).

One final complaint: there's a sign commemorating the opening of the bridge.

Couldn't they scrape together a local celebrity to do the honours? I'm sure Dean "Jimmy Corkhill" Sullivan would have done it. Or one of the Hollyoaks. Pete Price probably would have paid his own train fare. Bear it in mind for next time, Merseytravel.

A Walk In The Woods

From Hooton, Robert and I walked onto the old railway line that forms the Wirral Way. There is still the odd remnant of the old line at Hooton - the platforms are there, and there's an old waiting room, grown over with ivy. The station really was a behemoth in its day, with goods facilities to add to the mix as well. Unlike Rock Ferry, which is a shadow of its former self, Hooton still manages a brave aura of importance, a sense of place.

The Wirral Way curves south from the station, then heads due west. I had no idea how far we were going to walk, only the vaguest notion that it was a nice warm day, I had good company, and there was nothing else to do of a Sunday afternoon. The path was well maintained - it forms part of the National Cycle Route, and is popular with horses too - but the foliage either side of us was a disappointment: weeds and stinging nettles. There's maintaining the natural landscape, and there's letting it go to pot.

As we walked, we chatted idly. Robert has recently come back from a holiday in Scotland, and he told me about his misadventures there. I'm afraid that after clambering up and down mountains and glens, the almost flat landscapes around the Wirral Way were a bit of a come down. He spent a lot of time moaning about the lack of bracing vistas and inspiring views.

Normally I'd have told him to shut up and pushed him into a bank of stingers. In this case, he had a point. The path follows the track of the old railway exactly, and so it tends to be at a lower level than the surrounding landscape: it's also surrounded by high trees and hedgerows. The net effect is that you feel like a bit of a Borrower, stumbling around at the bottom of the vegetation.

It also quickly became clear why the railway failed. We had absolutely no idea where we were once we left Hooton. According to the map, we were passing to the south of Willaston, a large Cheshire village; but there was no sign of it at all. The railway builders had followed the path of least resistance, with the cheapest land and the simplest routes, so as a result the line passes close to a fair few settlements - but not close enough.

The first sign of civilisation was when we emerged at the preserved station at Hadlow Road. I came here back in the early days of the blog; when the line closed, the council kept the station as it was as a tourist attraction. When I had visited before, though, the ticket office had been closed, and we took the opportunity to have a poke around inside.

It's easy to romanticise old railways. Easy to forget that the service on this line was infrequent, and in noisy, filthy steam trains. Looking around the ticket office, with its bare wooden floors and charming anachronisms, you can forget that it would have been freezing cold, and there were only bare wooden benches to sit on. There was an undeniable power to it though, a whole mix of whistles and Bernard Cribbins and the smell of ash. Nostalgia for something which was dead long before I was even born. Another of those strange ideas that goes through the male psyche like words in a stick of rock.

We pressed on down the path, our conversation having turned, as it usually does, distinctly x-rated. I won't go into it here, as this is a public website: all I'll say is that Robert has a dirty mind.

Once again I gave thanks that I'm a man as I nipped into the bushes for a pee, and then we were passing under the Chester road through a dark concrete tunnel that the local teenagers had "decorated". If you believe the graffiti there, everyone in Willaston is inbred, Liverpool FC will last for ever, and a boy called John sucks cocks. I don't know where Frank Muir used to find his witty graffiti for the books he used to produce every Christmas: all I ever see is crudely drawn penises and insults. What's worse is text speak has crept onto the walls as well - there was actually an LOL up there, which is depressing for a hundred reasons.

A sense of magic began to infuse the path then, as we descended into a cutting. We were suddenly walking between high rock walls, slick with moisture and moss. I loved it. It was like being underground, or in a secret cave. I've always loved caves, and alcoves, and niches: it comes from reading too much Enid Blyton as a child, when middle-class children couldn't nip to the shops for a pint of milk without encountering smugglers hidden in a labyrinth of potholes. My absolute favourite was The Valley of Adventure, where four well-scrubbed youths and a parrot are isolated in the middle of a Mittel-European country and have to hide out in a cave behind a waterfall. I loved that idea. Maybe not the parrot though.

I expect that's where my love of underground railways comes from, too - the world of secret trains, of exciting hidden places. Either that or it's something deeply psychologically disturbing it's probably best not to dwell on.

At Neston, the line is broken by people, as the town has grown over the old railway line. There's still a Station Road, but now it's been subsumed by suburbia. Of course, as soon as we hit a population centre, it began to rain, and Robert and I must have looked a sight: wet, sweaty, slightly dirty from the mud.

We were at a metaphorical crossroads now. I'd done this section of the Wirral Way before, last year, so there wasn't really any need for me to do it again. On top of that, if we carried on, there'd be a while before we would find a way out again, and it was starting to rain. Neston had buses and trains that could take us somewhere dry.

Never underestimate cheapness. Yes, we could have left the track at that point, but we both had Saveaways, the Merseyside only ticket, and we were still in Cheshire. We'd have had to pay for a bus out of there, at least to the county line.

We walked on.

Fortunately the rain was only a shower, enough to get us mildly damp but not soak us. The path was a lot busier at this point as there were walkers out with their dogs, families out for a stroll, and bikers. Lots of bikers. Lots of nice families out cycling together. I never went cycling with my family when I was younger - me and my brother had BMXs, and we'd race around the estate on them or try and do wheelies, but my Dad never cycled, and it would have been a cold day in hell before you got my mum on one of them. I didn't think we were missing much. We used to go on walks as a family, where you can all talk to one another - it's hard to bond as a unit when you're whizzing along at fifteen miles an hour in a straight line.

Soon we were at Parkgate, home of the Famous Parkgate Ice Creams. I don't have a sweet tooth, at all: I mean, I like ice-cream, and I'll happily have the odd Magnum or Cornetto, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it. I'm far more a Cornish Pasty kind of guy. So Robert volunteered to find out why the ice cream was so famous, and bought himself a twin cone. For some reason, he then decided to perform oral sex on it:

Yes, folks, he is single and available. Just in case you want to find out what it's like to be a ball of toffee ice cream.

Once he'd eaten his ice cream, and sucked the sticky liquid off his fingers (steady...), we returned to the Wirral Way. We inadvertently ended up on the bridleway, which sounds fine, until you realise it's (a) soft and moist and (b) littered with horse muck. I mean, everywhere. Can't horse riders take a plastic bag out with them, like dog walkers? Though the quantities we saw would mean you'd probably have to cart a bin bag around with you.

Fortunately we were able to get back on the path in time to cross the border into Wirral, and with it, Merseyside. A plan was forming, as the afternoon was getting on and we were increasingly tired. We'd walk to Heswall, then go to the bus station in the town for a (Saveaway-funded) bus home. It wasn't that far, and in the meantime, we could admire the scenery: finally we were properly above ground, and we could see the Welsh mountains across the estuary.

I'm at a loss to explain what happened next. For some reason, we managed to walk past Heswall altogether, something which passed us by until we realised we were stood in the middle of nowhere with fields all around us. I can't explain how my normally fantastic sense of direction let me down. It must have been Robert's fault. Yeah, that's it.

We could have turned around, walked back, but that's an incredibly depressing prospect, so we decided we'd carry on to the next village, Thurstaston, and see if we could get a bus there. Robert was immensely disappointed that this would mean we wouldn't get to visit the not-funny-at-all Gayton, but there was no alternative. We was tempted to make a detour for this:

I mean, The Dungeon? What? We decided not to bother looking in the end, as the reality could never be as interesting as the Orc-manned torture chamber we had in our heads, and Thurstaston couldn't be too far away - could it?

It depends what you mean by Thurstaston, I suppose. We stumbled upon the old railway platform there, still preserved: the line was only single track, so this would have served up and down trains. More interestingly, behind the platform was a proper visitor centre, with a cafe, toilets, and exhibition space.

Inside were the usual rag-tag elements that the name "visitor centre" implies: a few stuffed animals in a diorama about the nature of the Wirral Way, a model ship, a few informative plaques. There was a brief history of the line's railway past, too. Once we'd spent a respectable amount of time cooing over the exhibits, and tried to work the hi-tech public transport kiosk (which could only tell us that yes, the Wirral had buses), we ventured into the village.

You know how I said the railway bosses had built the line some distance from the village they served? Well, take what I said about Willaston, and times it by a thousand for Thurstaston.

There was an astonishing distance between the village and the railway station. With planning like this, it's no wonder that Doctor Beeching decided to give the axe to the route. It's a shame it went, but there's no way it would survive, not in today's economy: there are vast lengths of route without anyone nearby - fine in an intercity railway, not so good on a little local one. Robert suggested that it might have been nice as a preserved railway, a steam train running between West Kirby and Hooton. That might have worked, but sadly, the line's now been built over in places, so it's never going to happen. Instead it's being slowly reclaimed by the earth: the only wheels that'll pass over it now are bicycle wheels.

As for us, we'd walked nearly ten miles in an afternoon, which isn't bad for two slightly podgy men with little or no athletic aptitude. There's now only a little strip between Thurstaston and West Kirby that I haven't walked, so I'll have to do that for completion's sake. In the meantime, we decided to celebrate the end of the walk as men always do:

Marvellous.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I woke up this morning to find a box on my doorstep. Nothing new there: I'm currently being stalked by Russell Tovey, and he frequently leaves me gifts - chocolates, jewellery, pictures of him naked save for a pair of opened toed sandals. I keep saying stop, The Bf will find out, but I just can't quell his ardour. It's a hard life.

However, this box was different. Eight inches square, it was wrapped in plain brown paper, and my name was spelt out using letters cut from the newspaper. I wracked my brains: did I know anyone who had recently been kidnapped? After all, I know some very important people. One of my friends has met Cherie Blair. He could be in a cellar somewhere, right now, chained to a radiator with only a transistor tuned to the World Service for company. Unlikely, because no-one uses transistor radios these days, but you never know.

I gingerly opened the package, and inside was a letter. It had been wrapped around a Sheila Hancock souvenir paperweight: she was wearing her wimple from Sister Act. I took this as a veiled threat, having seen her as a Madam Whiplash judge on Over The Rainbow.

Dear Merseytart

it said.

I read what you wrote about Hooton the other day and I thought I'd put you right on a few things. Don't ask who I am: just trust me when I tell you that I am amazing, and know more than you ever will.

There are no plans to cut back the Ellesmere Port service to a shuttle, as you discussed. Quite the contrary. Merseyrail are planning on increasing the Chester service to four trains from December, yes, but that will be at no cost to the Ellesmere Port service. Through effective management of the fleet, they'll be able to increase frequencies without causing any problems. That'll mean six trains an hour between Hooton and Hamilton Square, and a total of fourteen trains an hour between Hamilton Square and Liverpool. Not bad eh?

"That's pretty good," I said, then realised I was talking to a letter.

Chester's not just one of the busiest routes: it also has "suppressed demand". There will have to be a change to the maintenance routines, but they will manage. There'll be no need to bring in the trains from down south for the new schedules, either, though Merseyrail is still looking at the possibility of bringing them into the fold in the future. Passenger numbers are rising all the time.

"So why improve Hooton? What's the reason?" I gasped.

I'm not sure why I can hear that, but here's the answer to your question. Hooton is being improved because it's a busy junction with a large car park that has been a little neglected. That's it. There's no ulterior motive - just a desire to make the station that little bit better, that little bit nicer, that little bit more accessible.

You're a cynical chap, I know: but remember that sometimes people do things for good reasons.

Yours,
A RELIABLE SOURCE

P.S. This letter will now self-destruct.

With that, the missive burst into flames in my hand. As I ran my burnt fingertips under the cold tap, I couldn't help smiling. Two more trains an hour to Chester is fantastic news - that's doubling the service. It's a plan with no down sides. Increased frequencies between two major cities, metro-level service along the Wirral Line, and Ellesmere Port stays as an integral part of the network. Marvellous. Hurrah for anonymous tip offs!

Hooton and Howlin'

The last week has been an uninterrupted streak of glorious, hot weather, sunny and sticky. So what happens the one day I decide to leave the house? It goes cloudy and rains. Marvellous.

The plan was to hit Hooton to see the new MtoGo shop, and then to have a bit of wander down the Wirral Way - the old Hooton to West Kirby line. My partner in crime once again was Robert, who is increasingly becoming the Lois to my Clark. Sorry, the Lewis to my Clark. We venture forth into untarted territory, unbowed, fearless. With me in charge, obviously.

First stop, though, was Hooton, the unattractively named junction at the base of the Wirral Line. I tarted it - Christ - two years ago, but it's subsequently had a load of cash thrown at it to be redeveloped, so I wanted to get a "before" under my belt.

We got off the Chester train and immediately spotted this curious sign in the waiting room. I can't quite work out what's gone on here. Is there some technical, redevelopment reason for there being glue on the seat, or has someone just spilt some Uhu? Are they setting up a YouTube joke for later, when someone "hilariously" gets stuck to it? All the other seats were fine. It was the first time I'd been in one of those glass Tardis waiting rooms that have sprung up all over the place - it was surprisingly nice. Back when I used to commute to Chester, we'd often have to get off at Hooton for various reasons (usually a breakdown of some kind), and I'd stood in the peeing rain on the platform rather than venture inside the shelter. It always seemed to be occupied by aggressively noisy thirty something women who would do anything to protect their over-elaborate hairdos, and God help you if you came splashing anywhere near them. They've since built another modern looking waiting room on the Liverpool platform, but annoyingly, it doesn't match the one on the Chester platform:

Clearly the silver and blue scheme offended the Colour Tsars, and they decreed the new one should be in the corporate livery. It's also bigger than the old one. Freudians, do your work.

The biggest redevelopment to come at Hooton will be a new footbridge, incorporating full lift and disabled access. Because this is a busy station, and the active platforms are only accessible via the existing bridge (the platforms nearest the ticket office are used to hold trains overnight), it wasn't possible to demolish the current bridge until a replacement was around. As such, they're going to build the new bridge behind it, then demolish the old one once it's in place, somewhere early in 2011. The workmen are already on site, and have got rid of the old disabled toilet that used to be on the platform. No word yet on whether they'll transfer the distinctive "eau de pissoir" to the new footbridge, but fingers crossed.

Another part of the redevelopment is they've finally opened the long-promised MtoGo shop in the booking hall. The previous newsagent that was in the station building closed years ago, so it was always surprising that they took so long to install it. It's a smaller version of the Liverpool Central or Moorfields buildings, and looks very neat - however, it was closed when we got there, so we couldn't go in and poke the confectionary. I never knew that MtoGo shops did close, actually: I thought they were open as long as the station was, but the presence of a ticket window indicates otherwise, I guess.

The question is, why is Hooton getting all this cash thrown in its direction? I thought it was just a reflection on the fact that it's been neglected for a long time. Even though it's a Merseyrail station, and is within area B with the rest of the Wirral, it's actually in Cheshire. It's been ignored in the same way that the other Cheshire stations have.

Robert, however, had a different explanation. Network Rail have advocated more trains on the Liverpool-Chester route, freeing up capacity and increasing reliability. It'd also mean that there'd be six trains an hour between Hooton and Liverpool. However, to do that, they'd need to add some more trains.

Initially, the idea was to add units from London, the only other place that runs trains like we have on Merseyside. They were replacing theirs, so the trains were going spare. For some reason though, Merseyrail haven't bitten their hand off. The trains are still sitting around unused. No-one knows why: perhaps Merseyrail can't afford to rent them, or perhaps they don't fancy upgrading the trains to our standards. God knows what the Colour Tsars would say to trains that weren't yellow and grey travelling around willy nilly.

Without any new trains, it's difficult to add new services. So they may fall back on a different proposal: implement the four trains an hour to Chester... and withdraw the direct service to Ellesmere Port. One train would be left to run there and back again, and everyone would be forced to change at Hooton. Hence the upgrades, to ensure the people waiting on the platform are well catered-for.

This is all a rumour, for the moment. It would of course be a massive step back for Ellesmere Port if its direct service to Liverpool was withdrawn: even if it's a relatively simple change, it's an inconvenience for passengers. It'd be bad for Liverpool too, as I'm sure many of the people who currently take the train to shop in the city, for example, would change to a bus to Chester to save time. Plus, you only have to look at the Helsby-Ellesmere Port service to see what can happen when a service becomes a shuttle: it gets wound down and down until it becomes nothing. I'll keep an ear out but it would be a shame if this investment came at the detriment of the train service: that's text book giving with one hand, and taking away with the other.