Book Reviews - Review 373

Matthew Engel is probably best known as a cricket journalist, writing for The Guardian and then being editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack for twelve years, which surely means that he belongs to the high priesthood of cricket journalists. His writings have always been marked by trenchant criticism, not least of the follies of the game's administrators, and by humour; he once suggested that the England Test player Philippe Edmonds, not known for the cricketing equivalent of football's "work rate", if there is one, would have liked a contract involving "no heavy lifting". In this book he applies the same approach to Britain's railways, his thesis being that the country's railways reveal much about the state of the nation. I should perhaps have used the past tense, as the two editions date from 2009 and 2010, before the Conservative Party returned to power. As Engel is critical of both governing parties over many decades, this does not in itself detract from the book. In fact, today's reader is very likely to conclude that nothing has changed fundamentally over the last eight years, with the problems he identifies only having got worse. As anyone keeping up with the news will know, 2018 has seen a third enforced renationalisation of the East Coast main line, a plethora of strikes, a fiasco over new timetables and the railways becoming second only to used car dealers when it comes to public mistrust. Finally, by way of Introduction an explanation of the title: a 1980s BBC Television series entitled The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin portrayed the life of the eponymous middle manager, one of whose many tribulations was the daily commute into London when the train was invariably delayed by eleven minutes for a different bizarre reason each day.

The framework for Engel's book is provided by his account of a journey from Penzance to Thurso and back using a two-week Rover ticket. There are ten chapters, each given the name of a place visited, which provides the starting point for consideration of various railway topics relating to the place. The first chapter "Newton-le-Willows" is something of an exception, as there is nothing about a journey to and from that place. It was where the government minister William Huskisson was killed in 1830 at the opening of the Manchester-Liverpool railway, as the date shows one of the first lines to be built. After the reference to this incident, Engel goes on to speak of the "very strange relationship" between railways and government, marked by the reluctance of British, as opposed to continental, governments to regulate the railways. This is a recurring topic, as he recalls the railway boom and bust bubble of the nineteenth century, when lines that made no economic sense were either built or planned, and the numerous accidents of the early days, not to mention the discomfort in which most early passengers travelled. When it comes to the present, he points to the limited number of electrified lines and the lack of high-speed services in comparison with other comparable countries.

One other chapter, the one entitled "Melton Constable" has to be another exception, as no trains have run for over fifty years to what was once, at least for rural Norfolk, an important railway junction. Following a description of a visit to a former railwayman there, Engel unsurprisingly uses the chapter to discuss railway closures, which gathered pace in the 1950s and reached their apogee in the 1960s when the Conservative government appointed Dr Richard Beeching to be chairman of the loss-making, since the late 1940s nationalised British Railways with the mandate to consider the future of the network. Engel's attitude to this controversial figure is somewhat ambivalent. He suggests that an examination of the railways' purpose was overdue and points out that he was only carrying out government policy. On the other hand, he criticises Beeching's view of the future of railways as erroneous (he thought freight would become more important than passenger traffic) and quotes the economist Sir Christopher Foster's view that Beeching, like others in his role, had little grasp of the realities of the railway.

If these two chapters deal mainly with the past, many of the others deal with the more modern era, in particular what has happened since privatisation in the 1990s. On this subject Engel reports on an interview with the then prime minister, Sir John Major, who accepts that some, at least, of the problems of the nationalised railway were due to government, because it always had other priorities such as health and education and found it easier to cut investment in railways. Engel's conclusion is that Major's comments amounted to a "damning self-indictment", which could be summed up as: "We cannot be trusted. Stop us before we kill again." (p.246) Although he does not say explicitly whether privatisation, as carried out, was almost akin to murder, Engel is extremely scathing about the process, which he estimates as having cost around £1 billion, and the results: the fragmentation of the network, the excessive fares, the overcrowding, the continuing use of ancient rolling stock, in particular the "Pacer" diesel units renowned for their lack of comfort, and the general unreliability of the service. He also refers to the typically British unwillingness to protest. Incidentally, earlier this year (2018) I experienced how they do things differently on the other side of the Channel. When some trains were cancelled in the Nice area, commuters occupied the tracks and stopped all traffic.

One claim made by Engel may come as a surprise: that the opposition Labour Party, although it had opposed privatisation, did nothing to prevent privatisation being completed before the 1997 election which it was certain of winning. This was, according to Engel, to make sure that they would not have to take any of the blame. When Labour did assume power, despite some efforts by its deputy leader John Prescott, it, too, made railways a low priority with Prime Minister Blair preferring "to [strut] the world, starting wars here and there" (p.261). If some will not agree with this damning indictment, they may well accept Engel's point that the job of Minister of Transport has always been held in low esteem and disliked by many of its incumbents, who have usually kept the post for only a short time and damaged their reputations in the process. Perhaps the fiction of Yes, Minister is not too far from the truth. When the minister Jim Hacker was looking forward to becoming transport "supremo", he was brought down to earth by his top civil servant, Sir Humphrey, with the comment: "We call it transport muggins." To sum up: Engel is very hard on successive governments and who can blame him?

The humour of the book comes through mainly in Engel's accounts of rail journeys. In one case it is a case of an overheard conversation about sexual encounters, in another the continuing disparagement by an old woman of any comment made by her travelling companion. One amusing incident featuring the author himself is an encounter with an ill-tempered employee of Virgin Trains in the buffet, now called the Shop. Umerji, his name according to his badge, proved to be somewhat lacking in customer service skills, telling his hapless customer to hurry "(o)r you'll be here all fucking day" (p.303). Arguably over-egging the pudding, Engel exploits the incident by adding that Umerji could be in trouble if he were ever mentioned in a book. Virgin Trains also feature in an anecdote recounted second-hand. It tells of an officious employee trying to extract the full fare from an old woman who had by mistake taken a different train from the one she had booked when travelling from Manchester to London. This prompted a fellow passenger, the comedian Tom Wrigglesworth, to organise a whip round, which raised the necessary money. On arrival at Euston, presumably thanks to the good offices of the man from Virgin, he was met by the police and threatened with arrest for begging. Wrigglesworth turned the incident into an Edinburgh Festival sketch, which, in addition to his own, no doubt provoked Schadenfreude among his audience, especially those having endured overpriced and overcrowded Virgin Trains, not to mention the likely similar reaction among the readers of Engel's book, providing they are not top managers with Virgin Trains.

Towards the end of the book, Engel suggests it would be possible to write a similar kind of book about Britain's energy policy but adds that he will not be writing it. It would arguably be possible to say the same thing about education policy in the confusing age of academies, free schools, new grammar schools, astronomical student fees and student loans unlikely ever to be repaid. Perhaps it is hard to think of an area where a publication would not be justified. If anyone attempts it, let us hope they do half as well as Engel with his chosen topic.

Review by Stuart Parkes