I know there are people on this forum whose understanding of law is better then mine, but on the face of it this is an interesting situation.

This is the time of year for planting. Our local supernarkets and Farm Shop, all of which usually sell seeds and seedlings at this time of year, are still allowed to open. Presumably Plants Galore also sell the same products. Where is the logic in one being able to buy a packet of seeds or a tomato plant seeding in Morrison's when you can't buy them at a Garden Centre?

We are told that we can buy anything in a shop that is still allowed to open, whether or not it is "essential." Furthermore, nobody has ever defined what "essential" is and rightly so, because each person's essential purchases may vary depemding on their own circumstances. As was pointed out recently, a bat and ball set might be seen as "essential" if it is the only way to entertain the kids/ keep 'em quiet.

We should also not lose sight of what the regulations are for in the first place. They are to avoid the spread of this virus, not to punish the population.

Having done no further research on this particular case, it strikes me that a pig-headed local authority might have come across a pig-headed trader and neither of them want to be seen to back down (Substitute "principled" for "pig-headed" if you prefer because the use of the term was rather subjective!)

For the avoidance of doubt I have not concluded who is right or who is wrong in my opinion in this case, I am simply trying to look at the wider issue (added in case someone posts the term "snowflake" again... )

That would ony work in some areas. As far as I know our local operator, Faresaver, only has single door buses. I've certainly never a seen a double door one on their routes. Graham might know more of course.

And of course the vast majority of buses in the rest of the country have only one door, and that is at the front.

THat's probably called pragmatism.

The options put forward by II possibly show why the government is keeping very quiet about all this at the moment.

There are many factors to take into account above and beyond the question of whether or not to loosen restrictions, many of which have nothing to do with the restrictions themselves.

Firstly, how are people going to react when all this is over? We don’t know is the short answer. Home working may catch on reducing some of the need for commuting; individuals, especially those in high risk groups, might not want to return to normal in the short term anyway; and some forms of loosening, whilst they might sound good on first hearing, don’t look so good when you delve down into the practicalities. Just for example’s sake, as a retired old git in pre BC days, I was not above looking at the weather forecast, finding out it’s better further east today, then jumping in to a Paddington-bound HST^▸ (High Speed Train) (I said it was pre-BC days!) and walking the Grand Union canal between Slough and Harlington, or the Regents Canal from Paddington to Camden, or to walk the DNS^▸ (Domain name service) trackbed from Didcot to Upton. I'm not sure I am in any hurry to go back to doing that even if the rules allowed me to.

Something else that we need to bear in mind, and I am not trying to be callous when I say this, is that people die of diseases every day. That in itself is nothing new. I believe I am right in saying that 10,000 people die each year in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) from flu. That’s an average of 200 a week. If covid 19 deaths get down to the same sort of levels, should we really all be wearing face masks and social distancing, or should we just be a bit careful not to get to close to anybody who is coughing and looks sweaty? I am not saying yes and I’m not saying no – I’m just posing the question.

In other examples (from the list): “Restrict travel by introducing a 'with reservation only' service on long journeys.” What’s a long distance journey? You’ll need to define it and, when you do, there will be outliers that will put spanners in the works. So how long is “long?”- 50 miles? If so, from Chippenham I could go to Goring & Streatley without reservation, but I’d need one to go to Pangbourne. I think you would agree there’s a bit of sense not being made there, and it is caused purely and simply by trying to over-define things.And that is of course only an example and not a one-off. If you try to mileage-define restrictions there will always be people who can go to Five Ways but not Birmingham, Finsbury Park but not Kings Cross, Lostock Hall but not Preston, and so on.

Similarly, “Ban leisure travel.” That would need to be defined. Is going to Marks & Spencer in Bath to buy a pair of shoes “leisure travel?” Is going to see an octogenarian uncle in Cheltenham who probably won’t be around much longer “leisure travel?” If one is but the other isn’t, how in the World is that going to be policed? Would it not be far simpler to say to people ”Keep leisure travel to a minimum” because that will probably achieve an equally good result without people trying to decide what is allowed and what isn’t, with half of the population disagreeing with them after they’ve decided anyway.

I am not the sort of person who puts unquestioning trust in any government, but I do feel at the moment that cans of worms could be opened if we are not careful when the restrictions start to be relaxed, so for the time being I am happy to be kept in blissful ignorance.

The Great Central – my part in trying to prevent its downfall

The Great Central Railway closed between Aylesbury and Rugby, and from Nottingham to Sheffield, on 5th September 1966. The bit in between followed in 1969. I used it on a number of occasions in the last year of its operation, and two of my tickets have survived, including no. 8417, which was issued on the last day, Sunday 4th September.

In those days, there were two possible ways to travel overnight from Sheffield to Bristol. The Newcastle to Bristol Mail left the Midland station at about 2315 and landed you in Bristol at about 0435. The alternative was the York to Swindon train from Sheffield Victoria just after midnight, via the Great Central, Banbury, Oxford and Didcot West Curve, and this was extended to Bristol on Sunday mornings only, arriving at about 0745. The advantage of using the Great Central route was that, by the time the train got you to Bristol, the buses had started running and that avoided a 4-mile walk home to Stockwood (my only income back then being from newspaper rounds, taxis were out of the question!). The buses were still safely tucked up in their depots and the crews mainly still tucked up in bed at 0435 on a Sunday morning in those days.

It would not be uncharitable to say that passenger loadings on this train left something to be desired. One Sunday morning the train, comprising one coach and a number of parcels vans, pulled up in Chippenham and I saw a bloke selling newspapers from a barrow on the platform. I got out to buy one, and so did the rest of the train’s entire passenger complement. There were four of us, and two of them were footplate staff going home “on the cushions.” I had a free pass. I often wondered if the other bloke on the train was actually paying the railway some money to be there…

On the very last morning of all, 4th September 1966, the train was terminated at Swindon because engineering work had closed the line, and I was rudely awakened by someone telling me that a replacement bus service was awaiting my pleasure outside the station. In fact, as I recall, I was rudely awakened twice, because the first time I went straight back to sleep again (when you had a compartment to yourself in Mk1 stock then the bench seat could be remarkably comfy...)

That bus ran from Swindon to Bristol with only me on it - on a child privilege single from Sheffield Victoria to Bristol TM^‡(resolve) costing 6/11 (that's nearly 35 pence if you want it in new money). A microcosm, perhaps, of why so many railway lines closed in the 1960s.

If any classic bus enthusiasts are reading this, it was a Bristol MW on the rail replacement job...

As I was 14 at the time, it might be worth mentioning that in those days half fare children’s tickets were only available between the ages of 3 and 14. However, children of railway staff had that concession extended to their 15th birthday, hence the “child” tickets.

A final twist to the story came in September 2006, when the new heritage Great Central Railway was commemorating 40 years since the line’s closure. In their Gala for that weekend, they offered a free ride to anybody who could produce a ticket issued for the line on the last day of operation. Suffice to say, ticket 8417 came out of store and returned to Quorn & Woodhouse station, and the resulting complimentary ticket also appears in this collection.


A larger version of that ticket scan appears here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93122458@N08/19913805372/

Not quite Graham. Lavington, like Badminton, escaped the closure of the rest of the local stations on the line, and finally closed when the Holt to Patney & Chirton line lost its service in April 1966. That said, as far as I recall there was only one other station between Patney and Westbury, and that was Edington & Bratton. The bible on this subject, "Passengers no more" by G Daniels and L Dench, says it closed on 3rd November 1952

And remarkably comfortable too.

That photo comes from 2015 when I went out with the Railway Ramblers between Cirencester and Cricklade. They hired it for a quick look around the general Cirencester area for those not already conversant with it.

When given a good stretch of road it can get up to a healthy rate of knots, and the suspension/ ride quality puts the average Optare Solo to shame 

I have to own up that due to the sheer length of that post I haven't read it all - sorry

However, I wonder what is to happen to their two Bedford OBs that they still have in service?

Interesting that you should say that, as only this afternoon I was listening to Stephen Fry on R4 having a discussion about language in general and English in particular. One item that sunk in longer term was his ssertion that, rather than being simpified by shoddy grammar etc, the language actually gets more complicated down the generations, as words hitherto thought uneccesary become estabished grammar.

So I'm just curious - what in your view does the phrase "stay at home" convey that the phrase "stay home" doesn't?

(With a spot of luck we could get a whole new sub-thread out of this  )

On another forum I subscribe to, someone would have posted a photograph of a man in a tin foil hat by now...

I'm in two minds about this.

On the one hand there are many people, perhaps especially the elderly, who might need regular rests as they "lap" their local park.

On the other hand, you could argue that as other people have recently used that park bench before you, you never know what invisible things they might have left behind on it.

Quite. I was just about to reply on similar lines.

The problem with some of those examples is that they are essentially 3rd hand ie. "someone I know said." I'd want more solid evidence before I passed comment.

As far as I understnd things, the emergency regulations have not changed the basic premise that people are innocent until proven guilty, and not the other way around.

Police officers in the course of their duties have every right to be suspicious - that is their job, after all. However, in all the circumstances cited there will be others to back up their story. All the officer has to do is radio in so that someone can ring the supermarket or the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) to check the story/ "alibi." The job could be done and the person allowed to go on their way within a few minutes.

And I am afraid I just don't believe the story, as it currently stands, about a freight train driver being asked what his train will be carrying. Either the police officer was being unbelievably thick to epic proportions if he/she didn't actually understand how such things work (after all, if he himself was stopped in civvies on his way to work could he tell his colleague who he'd be nicking that day?) , and in any case the decsion isn't down to him/her over what freight gets carried by rail. There are others, far higher up the food chain than a copper on a roadblock, who decide those things.

And as regards being turned back at a road block and finding an alternative route - I can't think of a dafter course of action to take. What if you get stopped again? That would make you look more guilty than anything else in the eyes of the police. Once again, this appears to be a story that doesn't pass the reality test.

Didn't you still have to pay a fare for bikes in 1972? You certainly did in the 60s because I paid to take mine on a few occasions.

I doubt it. If calling it a hoax doesn't succeed, or misleading the American public doesn't succeed, he'll just lie about it so often that people believe him anyway. Some of our politicians use the same trick (no names mentioned but I know who I'm thinking of...)


I don't tick those boxes either!


Hopefully no non-family member will be coming round to yours anyway, whether or not they are obeying the rules! But we have to remember that all people's circumstances are different.

I don't know about you, but the term I believe they use for people like me is an "empty nester." I still live in the same house that I bought in 1987 when my 4 sons were between 3 amd 14. Needless to say I have plenty of room and a garden back and front, and open countryside that I can walk in not ten minutes stroll away, and I'll only pass 3 other houses on the way there. Others are not so fortunate.

Having spent a lot of my working life clambering over council houses and flats to see what was wrong with them, I am well aware that many of the less fortunate do not have such luxury. Imagine if you were a family of five on the 18th floor of a tower block in a 2-bed flat, with next door's front door perhaps 3 feet away from your front door. There are other peoplr going up and down in the lift or in the stairwell all the time. You can't escape them. The kids, being kids, are bored out of their tiny minds, falling out with each other, having fights, creating general bedlam and driving you and the wife up the wall. Meanwhile, somebody else in the block  likes his rap music so much he's turned the volume up to maximum and the only saving grace is that at least it drowns out some of the squawking from the kids. I think in that position many of us would be running to the park, or rather we would be if the council hadn't locked it up "for the duration."


Don' we all. But as you will see from my example, things aren't always black and white. There is a hell of a lot of grey too.