Scots food exports booming
really loudly and the entire carriage listened to him recalling his Second World War days.
“He spoke about kamikaze pilots coming in and ships sinking around him.
“On leave in Portsmouth, he was caught up in a bombing raid. He gave shelter to two young women and his eyes lit up as he thought back to his youth.
“A couple of days a week he’d take this journey, sitting in his favourite seat, staring out at the sea.”
The ex- Navy man was far from the only one to open up.
“I had one journey on the Central Wales line with a woman and her dog called Robin which was dying of cancer,” said Stuart. “She’d taken Robin on one last holiday together to the Gower Peninsula. It was a really poignant moment for her.
“She was going through a tough time as she confided that her husband had just left her after 35 years, saying he’d only take her back if she would stop suffering from depression. It really would have broken your heart.”
A pest controller’s description of being bitten by a rat as he tried to extricate it from between a curtain and its lining and a man who found his health concerns easing since taking up poetry were among other meetings which sprung to mind.
“Strangely I met that chap twice, on trains hundreds of miles apart. He was the loveliest man and he said quite simply, ‘I have a house, I have friends, I have enough.’ That was so powerful. One lady in Scotland told how she’d lost her confidence after her husband died so set off on a trip from John O’Groats to Land’s End to push herself.
“I was endlessly struck by the goodness and niceness and vulnerability of people I met.”
The duo’s nightly accommodation was often of the cheap and cheerful variety.
“We had one in Scarborough which cost £ 16 a night, including breakfast. We thought that was a good deal until we looked out of the window the next morning and saw the one opposite was £14 and that included a free pint of beer.
“Mind you, ours did have a parrot that spouted UKIP slogans.”
The railway epic was completed last autumn, avoiding the winter days when it would have been too dark to see the places they visited.
And now, many months later and with the book about to be launched, Stuart said the lure of the rails was becoming stronger once more.
“There was one day when I was scunnered with the whole thing,” he added. “And I never wanted to see the dark and hellish platforms of Birmingham’s New Street station again.
“But overall it was such good fun. It was a ridiculous thing to do at my age, but I wish we were setting off again.”
Daniel Defoe’s Railway Journey by Stuart Campbell (Sandstone Press) £8.99 paperback is out on July 20. SCOTLAND’S food and drink exports increased by over 11% in the first quarter of this year, compared with the same period in 2016.
The boom means that in the first three months of 2017, food and drink worth £1.2 billion was exported – an increase of £124 million on last year.
The EU remains Scotland’s largest regional export market outside of the UK, with exports growing by £50 million.
Statistics also show Scotch whisky exports increased by £79 million while fish and seafood, the largest food sector, grew by £48 million.
Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing said 2016 was a “record year for Scotland’s food and drink” – with the new figures showing further growth.
I was endlessly struck by the goodness of people I talked to.
Glasgow author Stuart Campbell.