101 YEARS OLD AND STILL ANACHRONISTIC AS EVER...

THE DATE was September 28, 1066. William of Normandy had just disembarked at Pevensea with his troops, eager to head towards Brighton for his planned battle with Harold of England.

“The Battle of Brighton, they’ll call it,” he announced, “and it will go down in history as the day we French beat the English. Come on chaps. I’ve got the tickets,” and they marched off to the coach station.

“Brighton, you say,” said the stationmaster when they arrived. “I fear the coach you booked has been cancelled.”

“What?” screamed William. “How dare you cancel it? We have a battle to get to. Get us a coach at once.”

“I wish I could,” said the stationmaster, “but it’s been like this all day. It’s the new timetables. They’ll bring better and bigger coaches and lots more, and faster horses, but we’re having operational problems which have led to cancellations and delays.”

“What are these problems and who is responsible?” shouted William. “I’ll have him locked in a pillory.”

“It’s management,” sighed the station-master. “They couldn’t run a day trip to a stag-do in an ale house. First we had all that fuss about onehorseman operated coaches and now this. A pillory’s too good for them. Look, as you’re good-natured French visitors to this land, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you. There’s a coach leaving soon for Hastings. I can try to get you on that if you like.” “How soon?” William asked. “Not sure exactly,” said the stationmaster. “This week, I expect. The trouble is that the horses, the horseman and the carriage have to come from different places and they’re all having trouble getting here because so many coaches have been cancelled. Management didn’t think of that, and that, in a nutshell, is what has caused the operational problems.”

“Right,” said William, “we’ll go for it,” and he handed the Brighton tickets to the station-master asking for them to be changed to Hastings.

“You can claim 50 per cent delayrepay if you’re more than a week late,” the station-master told him.

William quickly scribbled a note and handed it to one of his fastest riders. “Take this to Harold,” he commanded. “It tells him of our delay and says we’ll meet him at Hastings instead.”

“If that’s King Harold,” the stationmaster said, “you don’t have to worry. He’s somewhere in the north, you know, fighting Vikings or something. He’ll be delayed too. Northern Coach disruption is bad as ours.”

A few days later, William and his army all squeezed onto a small coach to Hastings. It should have been larger but they’d had to reduce it from a fourhorse coach to a one-horse wagon because of lack of rolling stock. Then it was held behind a stopping-at-all-inns service which delayed it further.

On October 14, they finally arrived at a place called Battle on the outskirts of Hastings and William ordered his men out. “We’ll fight here,” he said. “Battle of Battle sounds even better than Battle of Brighton. Our concern for alliteration will be one in the eye for Harold.” And the rest is history.