SO, here I am, on Platform 4 of Darlington station, waiting for the 3.58pm to Aberdeen – with a drum-kit. Yes, a drum-kit.
I’m not even catching the train to Aberdeen, nor any of the stations in between. I’m here because I received a strange instruction from my wife.
“Max has got a gig in Newcastle tonight. His train comes through Darlington at 3.58pm. He needs his drum-kit.”
I’m a 63-year-old grandad who’s had a very hard paper round. I should be taking it easy at my age. But, no, I’m an ageing roadie, delivering drums to my musician son as he passes through on a train.
The drums are packed into an assortment of cases – they are bloody heavy – and I’m expected to carry them from the station car park to Platform 4.
“I’m meeting my son to deliver his drums for a gig tonight – is it OK if I come through?” I say to the very nice lady at the ticket-barrier. I’m talking slightly breathlessly because I’m being half-strangled by the cymbal case, which is slung over my head to free up my hands.
She just smiles, sympathetically, yet offers no assistance. Surely, she could have drummed up support from somewhere.
Just then, a text pings in from Max: “Hey Dad, I’m in Carriage B – it’s two carriages from the front of the train.”
I’ve deliberately got to the station early – not knowing quite how I was going to manage – and the previous train, the 3.38 to Edinburgh, comes in while I’m waiting. It’s a long train that snakes up the entire length of Platform 4, and I see that Carriage B comes to a halt at least 100 yards away from where I’m standing.
I gather up the drum-kit – I’m like one of those one-man bands except all the instruments are bits of drums – and I waddle up to where Carriage B on the 3.38 has stopped.
I’m sweating and being slowly strangled but it’s OK. At least I now know I’m in position for the 3.58, and here it comes. But to my horror, it’s only got five carriages, so that Carriage B stops 100 yards back the way I’ve just waddled.
I pick up the cases and waddle back to my original position, where passengers are streaming off. Max is the last of them, waving nonchalantly, then jumping down onto Platform 4 to help.
“I can manage now, Dad” he says, dismissively.
“Get back on! Get back on!” I shout as the guard blows her whistle.
“It’s fine, Dad – it’s fine,” he adds, far too casually for my liking. He draws short of telling me to “calm down”, or that I’m being embarrassing, but it’s implicit.
The whistle blows again, this time a little more impatiently. I’ve a good mind to crash my cymbals back at her in retaliation, but it would take too long to extricate them from the case.
A third whistle blows, and I have visions of the train leaving with an incomplete drum-kit, with me having to follow it in the car.
Max gets the cymbals on in the nick of time. He jumps back on, the doors close, and the 3.58 to Aberdeen, via Newcastle, is on its way.
The nice lady on the ticket-barrier lets me back through. “Did you manage OK?” she says, tactfully ignoring the sweat and heavy breaths.
“Yes, all fine,” I reply. “He’s got his drums safely."
Did Ringo Starr’s dad go through this, I wonder?
