Train Crash

I started my fifth year of high school alone while my friends threw themselves into the big bad world of shitty labour for pennies but my academic interest was lost very quickly. It was all down to the subjects I had chosen. There was no thought put into it and instead I picked them on a whim. It was "put the tail on the donkey". Can't believe I was so bad looking back. Why the hell did I choose Social Studies over History, maybe Mr Bruce of the unique tie notoriety who hated me with a passion- to be fair he wasn't the only one so I was obviously doing something wrong. Economics, why?, for example bored me to tears and I knew I had to get out of the whole thing. So by chance speaking to a counsellor there was a YTS course as a trainee accountant that came along. I jumped at the chance.

It was soul destroying to be honest. For the first 4 months I had to travel in and out of Glasgow. I got the bus at 6:45 each morning and got back at 18:30. All for £28.50 a week. In truth I made nearly as much on expenses. In all I got just over £30 in travelling expenses by claiming to get 2 single train tickets each day at £3 each- they never asked for evidence. Instead I bought a weekly bus pass every Monday morning for £8.

I then got placed in Edinburgh. Within 3 months I was doing full sets of accounts and my time was being charged out at £10 an hour, while the accounts firm paid nothing, as the qualified ones sat back on their laurels getting me to run errands across town and make the tea and that sort of thing. Hey I don't mind starting at the bottom but for pennies? I didn't even question it though because I thought that is what you did and then found old school friends in the put telling me how they were on £250 a week working on an assembly line. But back to the accountants. I would have to sit each Friday afternoon and forcibly fill out a sheet charging my time for every moment I was there in 15 minute boxes so they could earn the maximum possible from me. Even if I was doing nothing I was told to say I was arranging files and pick a client at random to charge to. I became completely disillusioned with the whole thing so decided it was time to move on. My life was all work and I was getting nothing in return. I was even shoved into the face of rabid clients by these low lifes to justify my costs which looking back is unbelievable and was at the time so hard because I was on the client's side.

In this period I applied for a number of jobs so varied you would not believe. I still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and to be honest I wasn't putting the effort into thinking about it- see earlier school reference. Instead as always I just chased things on a whim because they sounded better at that  moment in time.

One such job was with the MOD. Again a trainee but much better pay. The job itself was an electronic engineer and required being based in England for 4 years. It sounded good to me as I wanted to get away. At the time I also had applied for the RAF, Navy and Royal Marines- those are other stories for another day. Though have to say the Marines was a laugh. Couldn't do the pull ups and was told to try the territorials first. The Navy was doomed from the start: What's your name? Full Name? Well I don't want your f***ing nickname you little p***k. Oh dear.

A letter arrived asking me to come for an exam which would take place in Glasgow so I went. After getting the bus into Glasgow I had to then go the the station to get the train out to Springburn college. My arrival in Glasgow was too early so I had to kill a few hours in shops browsing and then at the last moment realised I was running late so had to dash for the train. I caught it and no more just as it was getting set to depart but as such I had to get in the last carriage. It was not that busy inside but I took the furthest most seat at the back.

The train went on its way. I sat staring out the window with my back to everyone else in the carriage lost in my own thoughts. Probably I was thinking about the examination not knowing what it would entail. Then I was suddenly pulled out of my daydreaming by the high pitched screech of metal on metal as the train began to shudder. It was breaking but then the most almighty thump jolted the carriage and my head was thrown backward. That was a shock and it was like everything moved in slow motion. I saw a seat fly by by. Then silence. I looked around to see a woman with a big cut down her face bleeding from the nose crying and a man with a large exposed cut on his leg where the trousers had been ripped away. I heard voices but they were incoherent. For some stupid reason I thought we had been hijacked like the old westerns and someone was going to come on hidden my a handkerchief demanding all watches and jewellery be placed in a bag like modern day highway men. I was though unharmed but the following day I could not move my neck for the whiplash.

All the was in front of me was a door. It opened and out stumbled a second driver clutching his ribs and moaning. He started to make his way to the front realising no one was interested in his moans. Then we all sort of assembled and mulled about the carriage not speaking. One guy tried to open the doors but they wouldn't open. I remember some faces at the door a little time later and then they opened to allow us to spill out. I jumped on to the muddy footing below and walked over to something a few people were sitting on- cannot remember what. I sat there too. And it was only then when I looked at the length of the train I saw the severity of the situation. There was another train and at the front of both where they had met head on the front carriage of one train was on top of the other.

Strangely now I cannot remember if it was the front carriage of my train that was under or over the other. I cannot remember if the two people killed in the Bellgrove crash were on my train. In fact alot of it is misty now. What I do remember is being taken to a nearby community centre for questioning by police walking up a steep hill to get there in a line while being plagued by reporters wanting a story. And then after being taken in a police van to the bus station in Glasgow and dumped there. It took over an hour to get home and it was surreal thinking on what had happened while everyone else got on with their normal lives. I remember a flurry of mail arriving for me from various lawyers I never contacted asking to represent my claim against the railway provider- I never did claim. I remember the police arriving at my house one day to take another statement getting my to show them where I was sitting on a plan of the train and then taking away my only evidence for their own- my ticket which I had kept as a memento.

It was all very bizarre at the time. No one seemed to bother that I was in a train crash and people had died. Probably because apart from a stiff neck I was fine. But I sometimes wonder as I did then that had I not been running late and had instead arrived early for the train would I have sat at the front and felt the full force of the collision. I didn't but I do wonder sometimes.

Innocent child

When I look back to when I was a boy I had no fear. Nothing got in my way and this in later life became an inner strength. That strength is still in there somewhere but it's buried beneath the hundreds of layers of fear that I have spun over these past few years. When I was a boy panic couldn't touch me. Panic is fear of fear and if fear can't touch you then you can't suffer panic.

I wish I was that innocent little boy again or at least have the naive thinking of a child. Then I'd be fine. With age though supposedly comes wisdom. That is debatable. One thing that comes with age for sure though is inquisitveness. You question every thing. You ask why your heart is doing something it doesn't usually do, why you are tired or analyse any other ailment. That's fine, you get over it. But when it doesn't go away or when it keeps recurring you don't. That is what leads to panic attacks. That is the difference between me and the "normal" person- the person without anxiety and panic attacks.

So essentially the difference between the wreck I am now and the strong person I was before is a thinking pattern of fear. I think too much. I ponder constantly and feed the fear. A vicious circle that tires and agitates. Sometimes I think if I bang my head hard enough to forget then I will wake up free of this. If some head doctor put his hand in and stole my memories then with a clean sheet I'd write a different story.

Essentially though it is thinking. I can read how harmless panic attacks are in a relatively calm state and get annoyed at how I let them effect me. I see a woman dying of cancer cycling here, there and everywhere to raise money without complaint. I see old frail people walk miles. I see greatly obese people do the same. People with problems far greater than my own getting through. And in it all I wonder how I can be so weak. It frustrates me. That is until the moment sometime later when I am lying down unable to breathe with my heart bursting through my chest, my throat strangled, my limbs shaking and nothing but darkest despair in my mind. Did I really create this monster and keep feeding it the energy it needs to survive?

Responsibility plays its part. I worked through anxiety before being made redundant because I had no other choice- who would feed my family if I didn't go to work? When I had to look after my girls alone I did it because I had to. When I am so tired during the day that I can't keep my eyes open and can hardly stand for exhaustion I stay awake to watch the baby because I must. Responsibility makes us do things that show we can do them but at the same time isn't really helping our recovery.

I see the innocent child again in photographs. Free of anxiety, free of fear. Also though free of responsibility. Not a care in the world. I've come along way down and taking a wrong turn somewhere. Now I must find the way through this darkness back on to the road I once travelled before as boy to man.