Image via

On the odd day I don’t have the car I’m forced to use the train. I hate trains, they suck. Everything about them, or more specifically South West Trains, annoys the hell out of me (there is another post in here I think, but I’ll try and keep on TRACK for now. Bo bom che). Suburban railways are a bit of a different experience than the tube where all people do is stare at each others armpits. You seem to either get involved in or over hear loads of random and sometimes interesting conversations, with random and sometimes interesting individuals. Yesterday was one such day. I’d had a hectic one and sat down opening up my current read, Ethnography: principles and practices, whoo, whoo, when what society might call a chavette sat down opposite.

She wasn’t being very British at all and had the cheek to start chatting to a couple adjacent to her. Can you believe that, striking up a conversation with people you don’t even know – I bet that was uncomfortable for them. This was my first inaccurate sweeping social generalisation I made of her. That being a girl who will talk to anyone, wear a Lacoste tracksuit and a gold clown round her neck must be loud, gobby, annoying and uninteresting. She couldn’t possibly just be being friendly.

Anyway, I thought phew, I’m not in the mood for making polite conversation today, I’ll let some other poor buggers get it for a change. So I pretty much kept my head down and shut all the ‘yeah mates’ and ‘innits’ out and I didn’t really take much notice until the couple got off the train at the very first stop! Guess what? Yep, it was my turn for a chat. I tried to resist the first time after an ‘alwight mate’, with an abrupt ‘yep, good thanks, you?’ reply. My head went straight back to the book. ‘Ya jus finished work hav ya?’. As I looked up I must of had a bit of a face on as she said straight away ‘sorry, ya probably jus want ta read ya book? Ignore me, I jus like a chat me’. So I thought bugger it. She hadn’t been offensive, seemed genuine and after all I’m reading about ethnography, why not undertake an ethnographic interview with a real life DE, right hear, right now.

I’m not sure if I heard this right, but I think she said her name was something ‘Destiny’ something. I blame Beyonce to be honest. Anyway, we went on to exchange life stories for the next 45 mins and whilst she often gave me a bit too much information on her sexual encounters with ex-boyfriends and asked some very personal questions of me, she was quite sweet and just generally inquisitive. She asked me about the book I was reading, what I did for a living (this wasn’t easy to explain), where I lived, who with, what was she like, is she pretty (after all you don’t want to be going out with a munter as she so eloquently put it). My life looked pretty rosy in comparison to hers and everything I found out about her made me quite sad. How she was so jolly, chatty and amazingly wise for her age was beyond me.

Without going into too much detail everything bad in society pretty much happened to her. She was only 20 and had finally got her daughter back after months of ‘Sofa surfing’ as she called it (which turns out to be a huge social issue). She was off drugs and doing an NVQ in hairdressing. I felt quite proud of her and I was thoroughly pleased I had a good chinwag with her. It reminded me yet again how judgmental we can be and the importance of ‘liking your audience’.