David Thomas’s transgender diary

You remember Brief Encounter, the stiff-upper-lipped yet heartbreaking movie, starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, about a couple who fall in love after meeting in a station café?

Well, I have spent the past few months in my own private version of that tale. Granted, there’s no romance, or heartbreak. It’s just me and a chap called Frank. But still…

We met almost a year ago. My train had been delayed, so I went to get a coffee. The only other customer was a man, sitting at the table opposite mine. Judging by the silver in his hair and beard, I reckoned he was about my age.

He looked as though he had just had a very long, hard night – and possibly more than one. There was a small suitcase at his feet. I got the feeling that life had not been treating him kindly.

I don’t recall us talking then. But we both left the café to take the same train, ended up getting seats opposite one another, and our conversation began.

A number of things swiftly became clear. First, Frank was far from down at heel. In fact, he worked for a company that made bespoke, handmade shoes that could easily cost £5,000 a pair.

He came from Preston originally, but was now living down South, and his current business was just the latest in a long line of intriguing occupations, of which, if I remember correctly, psychotherapy was one.

What really bonded us was a shared strength of feeling about Brexit. Suffice it to say that many readers of this newspaper would have found our unfashionably positive opinions about leaving the European Union entirely sympathetic. Frank got off at one station, I at the next. That, I assumed, was the end of it. But then, a couple of months later, I was waiting for the train at the same station… and there was Frank. We greeted one another with cheerful smiles and manly handshakes, for I was still presenting as male at this point, and had another agreeable natter for the 90-minute ride to London. Frank told me that his office was in Wimpole Street. I did not mention that the London Transgender Clinic, to which I was going, was 40 doors further up the same road. We parted at Victoria station and that was that.

We met on one more train, I came out to him as trans, and we even became

Facebook friends. But we went several months without actually seeing one another… until one recent Saturday morning, at about 8.30.

I was going up to London, for another appointment at the clinic, feeling very nervous. This was my first big day out as a woman: skirt, make-up, visible curves, the works. To my alarm, the station was surprisingly busy, with far too many potentially prying eyes.

I was heading towards a less crowded patch on the platform when I spotted a familiar face. I gave a little wave and saw Frank’s puzzlement as he wondered who this tall, strange woman coming towards him was.

Then the penny dropped. In an admirable display of grace under pressure, he smiled, reached out his arms as I walked towards him and gave me a hug, exactly like any other man and woman who knew each other, meeting by chance and being delighted to do so.

We took our seats on the train and resumed our year-long, on-off conversation, which now ranged from the mating rituals of middle-aged Northerners to the utter futility of human life itself (the first of those topics leading seamlessly to the second).

Being there, talking to Frank, was the most wonderful, precious gift because it made me appear, and more importantly feel, normal. I wasn’t sitting self-consciously by myself, dreading the possibility of some random stranger plonking him or herself down beside me, close enough to see the flaws. I had a friend to take my mind off everything except for the pleasure of chatting with him.

This time we took the Tube together, walked to our shared destination and said goodbye with another hug and a peck on the cheek. And though my appointment went well, my surgeon said, ‘You look lovely,’ and I spent a happy hour or so browsing the fancy clothes shops on Marylebone High Street, the thing I will always remember will be the blissful relief of spotting Frank on the platform.

Because even in these woke times, the presence of a proper gentleman really can make a lady’s day.

Talking to Frank was the most wonderful, precious gift because it made me appear, and more importantly feel, normal