Friday, September 14, 2018

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Orphans on the line

A happy glimpse of life on the Bonkers Hall Estate (whatever Ofsted says).

Friday

Like many landowners, I have built a narrow-gauge railway to carry produce and fertiliser about my estate. Some years ago I hit upon the happy idea of allowing the Well-Behaved Orphans to run it for me. This morning, having business with Matron, I decided to take the train and see what sort of a fist they are making of it.

The train I intended to catch was cancelled and the one after it was delayed because of “lineside equipment failure in the Kitchen Garden area”. Not only that: despite having shelled out a tidy sum for a ticket, I was obliged to stand the whole way to the Orphanage.

If one little girl had not tipped me the wink that it was cheaper to buy a ticket as far as Home Farm and then buy another one from there to my destination, I should have paid even more. Yet when I complained the Orphans assured me that they had closely studied how the privatised railways are run and copied them in every detail.

That set me to thinking: should I bid for the Thameslink franchise? I know Matron has strong views on bedtimes and coal smuts, but the Well-Behaved Orphans can hardly make a worse fist of it than the mob running it now.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

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