Perfect moments

Battle station - the upline

 

Whenever people mention moments on railway stations I think either of T. E. Lawrence mislaying his manuscript of Seven Pillars of Wisdom or of Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter: but I had a moment of perfect pleasure yesterday morning, while waiting for the London train at Battle station, which involved neither the loss of a manuscript nor the tugging of heartstrings.

 

Battle station itself is a quiet survival from earlier days: a neo-Gothic building, a timberframed platform roof with fretwork decoration, and a bridge from the "up" to the "down" platform.  In the entrance lobby there was a man selling coffee from a machine plus assorted confectionery.  Having arrived early, I bought a capuccino and an Eccles cake and retired to a bench on the platform to wait.

 

There is something about the combination of a decent capuccino and the first bite into an Eccles cake that anticipates the bliss of heaven.  The second and third bites take you right there.  To quote Pop Larkin, it was perfick.  Which led me to thinking of the elements that lead to such moments of pleasure.  In a way, the capuccino and Eccles cake were the topping of a structure of other factors going back into the past and forward into the future: I'd had one of my little poems approved two nights before at the Brighton poetry group I go to, which still left a residual glow of satisfaction; I'd succeeded in organising the parking of dogs with the sitter in Battle with sufficient time to reach the station ahead of time; it looked as if the sun might come out; and there was the pleasant anticipation of seeing friends in London, going to exhibitions at the Royal Academy (of which more another time) and the theatre in the evening.

 

What brought all of this together, though, were the capuccino and the Eccles cake.  More, please!

 

Antony Mair