“MIND YOU WRITE!”

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 661, 14 January 1933, Page 20 (Supplement)

“MIND YOU WRITE!”

Saying Farewell at the Station. PROLONGED AGONY. (By SYBIL VINCENT.) The days of carriages certainly had one great advantage over the present times. Horses could not be left alone, and so when you took your guests to the station there was no question of that terrible business of seeing people off. Perhaps if you were rich enough to own a coachman, or important enough for someone always to spring and hold your horse’s head, you might sometimes descend to see your friends on to the platform. Still, even then the parting was probably not prolonged. Everyone who was brought up in the pre-motor era remembers the tyranny of the family coachman. No sin in his eyes was quite as great as keeping the horses waiting. It never mattered what the weather was like. Blazing sunshine or bitt4r wind had just the same effect. If you kept the horses waiting at any time, let alone when they had heated themselves by trotting to the station, they were bound to catch cold. So once you had seen Aunt Ellen or Cousin Mary safely on to the platform you could justifiably depart on the grounds of kindness to animals. With motors there .is no escape. . So far I have never discovered a station, from the city terminus to the tiniest wayside halt, where ample provision was not made for the seer-off to park his car. “It will be quite all right as long as - you are not more than half an hour,” a genial policeman always tells me, when I long for that otherwise unpleasant remark, “ You can’t leave your car here.” Perhaps people may exist who actually enjoy seeing their friends off by train. The thought that in another few minutes they will be miles away may lift all sorts of inhibitions and make them say intimate and interesting things they would not have thought of repeating at other times. With me, however, it has exactly the opposite effect. What is the use of starting an interesting conversation which is liable to be interrupted at any moment by a grind of brakes as the train pulls up? Instead, futile remarks about the happenings of the last few days are followed by equally foolish questions that have already been asked about mutual friends. Actually, of course, in most cases the person who is being seen off is an equal sufferer. Some of the most agonising moments of my life have been when I have started the usual polite farewell

words of thanks for a nice week-end as the wrong train came in, and tried to continue them until the right one arrived. Probably one is quite fond of the person who is seeing one off, or whom one is seeing off. In any other circumstances an extra five or ten minutes would be delightful. Something more than mere fondness is needed on such occasions. Love or hero-worship may transcend a prolonged railway farewell, but few ordinary friendships can prevent one from looking longingly at the guard’s flag. Perhaps it might be possible to establish certain conventions. If one could ask one’s guests if they liked being seen off, and get as truthful a reply as if the question had been about sugar in their tea, everything would be far easier. The danger is, however, that even if they did not want to be seen off they would be offended at your asking such a question. Otherwise, quite sensible people would be bound to take it as meaning “ I can’t stand your company for another five minutes.” Such a convention would not mean that all seeing off would cease. Some people undoubtedly do like being seen off. Still, occasionally to suffer in a good cause would not be so bad. To have spent an agonising quarter of an hour on the platform in vain is the bitter thing. Even if as guest or hostess you lack the courage to say, “ we’re very good friends and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed being together, but I’m not sure we can stand the strain of a prolonged platform farewell,” some simple formula might be adopted. “No seeing off, by request,” would be such a welcome postscript to a guest’s letter of acceptance.