Sometimes I miss things about the big city.
They say you can feel alone in a crowd but, most of the time, having people milling around all the time can be very comforting. And there is just so much to do. And, as in so many rural communities, too, you meet all types of weird and wonderful characters.
People everywhere get careless, but more so in big crowds. They drop things.
I once found a £20 note in a Croydon gutter. Will I hand it in or spend it? My conscience was pricked. I thought back to the advice in Bernera Sunday School all those years before. What would Jesus do? So I took it and turned it into wine.
Now we say goodbye to Croydon resident, June Brown, who was Dot Cotton, the holy chain-smoker in EastEnders who looked after Mr Papadopolous’s laundrette in Walford. Since the soap began, she lived at various addresses in and near Albert Square – except she didn’t.
Off-screen, Ms Brown lived just round the corner from me in South Croydon in the early 1990s. Like so many people, she was very different to the put-upon Dot.
We all know a Dot
Elegant and better dressed, I’d sometimes see her gliding towards a big car in St Augustine’s Avenue. No doubt she was being driven to the BBC Elstree studios in Hertfordshire. Quite a drive that. She’d have been better letting the train take the strain.
When I did an interview for the newspaper I worked for with her and Frank Bruno at the opening of the ill-fated Croydon Water Palace, she wound me up. “Cor blimey, Frank, listen to his accent. You from Oirland, then?”
“No Dot, I mean Ms Brown. I’m from Scotland. Now tell me what you are doing here today? Have you a connection to Croydon?” As if I didn’t know.
As a kid, gutted that EastEnders didn't do set tours, I sent #JuneBrown a disposable camera & asked if she could snap some set pics for me instead – the kindnesses of her heart she took time out to snap these for me. What a legend 💕 #RIPJuneBrown #EastEnders pic.twitter.com/mm8MuumwUq
— Shaun (@ShaunInBrum) April 4, 2022
After that, I met her in the Purley supermarket down the Brighton Road and she smiled coyly, as she did to Mr Papadopolous when she wanted time off. She had some big cove with her – not Frank, I hasten to add.
Her screen persona will be missed, a contradictory mix of pathetic victim of life’s injustices who was able to make us howl with laughter at the realism she portrayed. We all know someone like Dot.
Railways are the eco-friendly answer
I miss Dot and I miss using the railway. Perched on this Lewisian rock in the Atlantic, I miss the clattering lines, and the demanding staff. Ticket inspectors are lovely people – you’ve got to hand it to them.
Made financially attractive and comfortable for the average traveller, the train could help take more cars off the road
I also miss the curled-up sandwiches and the cheap fares. It was a while ago, obviously.
There was a day I was on a noisy, packed locomotive every week day and I do miss the clockwork regularity of the train – except on some days when the wrong kind of leaves on the line brought suburbia to a juddering halt.
In Scotland, we now own our trains. Nicola Sturgeon runs them and we pick up the profits. She’s done such a grand job of running Caledonian MacBrayne, she is now running choo-choos, like CalMac on wheels.
The railway should be the eco-friendly answer to getting around Scotland, where we have vast areas to travel. Made financially attractive and comfortable for the average traveller, the train could help take more cars off the road.
A brief encounter on the sleeper train
Despite the benefits of rail travel, you can get into awkward situations on long train journeys. I am now thinking about the overnight Caledonian Sleeper from Euston to Inverness.
Last time I was on it, I found myself allocated the same sleeping cabin as a seemingly very pleasant young lady from Culloden. Though initially embarrassed and uneasy over sharing a cabin, we both took to our beds. My thin, nylon pyjamas and I were in the top bunk and she was down below.
Around midnight, when we were leaving Crewe, we were both still wide awake and we both knew it. I leaned over and said: “I’m sorry to bother you but would you reach into the drawer under your bed to get me a second blanket? I’m a bit cold up here.”
She smiled sweetly. “I have a better idea. Just for tonight, let’s pretend that we’re married. How about we behave as if we are a married couple?”
I was completely shocked. “Oh, thighearna. I mean, that’s a fantastic idea.”
“Good,” she snapped. “Now get down here and find your own flipping blanket, you lazy git.”
Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides
