90. A ticketless traveller

And a cost-benefit analysis.

Dear Reader,

Ever since I’d caught this lost list as it blew past me at a garden party, and later finding a wrapped tea bag – a cup of calm – on a country walk, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled on my travels for more lost papery souls.

On our visit to a historic castle last week, Jim spotted a flash of orange on the grass.

‘Is that something for you?’ he asked me, knowing my habit for collecting ephemera to write about. He didn’t actually wink, but I could see he was thinking about it.

Here’s what he’d found:

I noticed in dismay that the ticket was dated the previous day.

‘They missed their train!’ I told Jim.

‘Oh! Isn’t that the ticket they’d used to get here, then?’

‘No, it’s the return half. Look, it’s for Dover back to London. How did they get home? Did they get home?’ Reader, I was worried.

I looked around me quickly, wondering if I might yet see the stranded passenger-to-not-be – let’s call him Ticketless Tom – casting about for his lost ticket home.

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Despite having been to the castle before, I have no idea of the layout of Dover itself, and I certainly don’t know where the station is located. In fact, the ticket led me to believe that Dover has more than one station, because the station named on the ticket is ‘Dover Priory’, not just ‘Dover’.

On my return home I had a look online.

Dover Priory railway station is the southern terminus of the South Eastern Main Line in England, and is the main station serving the town of Dover, Kent, the other open station being Kearsney, on the outskirts. It is 77 miles 26 chains (124.4 km) down the line from London Victoria.

Taken from Wikipedia

Ticketless Tom’s outbound journey had begun not at Victoria but at Bellingham, a small south-east London station not all that far from the Kent county border.

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Thetrainline.com tells me that there are 37 trains per day running between Bellingham and Dover, the fastest of which can cover the 61 mile (93km) journey in 1 hour 52 minutes.

According to the information given on the found ticket, I could see that it was valid for an adult travelling standard class outside of peak time, and that Tom had paid a concessionary rate thanks to showing his Family & Friends Railcard¹. I wonder how many others had been in his party?
(Reader, I hope they’d kept a better eye on their tickets.)

Off-Peak Day Returns are valid for one return journey only during off-peak hours and only on the date shown on the tickets. That’s right. Even if Tom had bunked down at the castle in an attempt to find it next day, this ticket was literally a ‘no go’ on any date other than August 9th.

My further inspection of the ticket made me wonder just how long Tom had been intending to spend in Dover in the first place. Not long at all, it seemed.

Tucked away in minuscule print at the very bottom right-hand corner is a sequence of numbers representing the time and date that the ticket had been printed.

1145 090823

Two potential scenarios presented themselves:

1.     That Tom had bought his ticket from a machine at the station.

2.     That Tom had bought his ticket on the train.

I don’t know which option Tom had chosen, but the second scenario would have meant an earlier arrival for him at Dover Priory.

Why?

The first train departing Bellingham after a ticket purchase at the platform at 11:45 on an August Thursday would have been 12.13, and after a change at Bromley South, Tom would have arrived at Dover Priory station at 14:08.

If Tom had bought the ticket on the train at 11:45, the train would have been the one that had departed two minutes before the ticket purchase, at 11:43. Tom would have changed at Sevenoaks and arrived at Dover Priory at 13:49.

Had a visit to Dover Castle been the specific reason for Tom’s journey?
If so, had he allowed enough time to explore such a vast site?

Reader, let’s see.

With the train arriving at Dover Priory either a little before or a little after 14:00, and with the castle being open from 10:00 to 18:00, around four hours remained for Tom to explore.

Hang on, though: how close is the castle to the station, and how long would it take to travel between the two?

Well now.

The castle custodians at English Heritage tell us on their website that the castle is located a one-mile walk uphill from the station. That doesn’t sound like too much of a distance, but Google Maps tells me that it’s an expected journey time of 26 minutes on foot. Oh, and that it’s 1.1 miles, not just the one.

An alternative to walking is to take the number 81 bus from Pencester Road – a ten-minute walk from Dover Priory station – up the hill to the castle entrance, a six-minute ride.

Reader, I’ve made a flowchart. You’re welcome.

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Onetripatatime.com’s Dover Castle page recommends that ‘…you aim to spend at least half a day at the castle, but you can easily spend most of the day there.’

Reader, looking at the bottom row of boxes on that flowchart, Ticketless Tom had no time to lose.

In an ideal world Tom might have dived into the café for a cuppa and a sticky² while he planned his order of play, but with the stopwatch to closing time already ticking fast I’d be surprised if pausing for coffee had even crossed his mind. Where might he have gone first?

The Great Tower offers freeflow self-guided tours. Costumed live interpreters welcome you at the Great Tower on selected days and life-like hologram characters at all other times.

The Secret Wartime Tunnels ‘Operation Dynamo’ tours are part guided by site staff, and numbers per tour are limited to 30 people, setting off at approximately 15 to 20 minute intervals (tour lasts approximately 50 minutes). Due to the immersive nature of these visits, no independent guiding is allowed in these areas. 

Access to the Underground Hospital (separate access from Operation Dynamo) is by guided tour only (limited to 30 people and lasting approximately 20 minutes), which is included in the admission price. 

Taken from English Heritage website

Aside from all that, there are eighty acres of grounds, and the striking view to admire from the ramparts down to the Port of Dover. On a clear day you can see France, just 22 miles to the south.

Panoramic view from the ramparts, facing south. If you zoom in you’ll be able to see the French coastline 22 miles away. The keep of Dover Castle itself is situated a five-minute walk away behind my right shoulder.

Tom’s tour was going to be a whistle-stop one.

(And if he still had his ticket home, that train analogy would be looking rather less unkind than it does now. Sorry, Tom.) 🤫

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How had ticket and Tom become estranged?

Might Tom have simply dropped the ticket in his hurry to explore the castle’s many attractions? We had found it not far from the admissions kiosk. Perhaps it had fallen out of his wallet before he’d stowed it back in his pocket after paying for his entry.

Or had he been overcome by hayfever from the glorious display of meadow flowers on the castle embankment, and dislodged the ticket from his pocket as he’d pulled out his hanky?

Had he bought an ice cream, or something from the gift shop, and not noticed his train ticket dropping to the floor as he paid?

Or had there simply been a hole in his pocket?

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Cost of Tom’s trip to Dover Castle

Off-Peak Day Return ticket (using Family & Friends Railcard):
£27.70

In many parts of the UK at the moment bus fares are charged at a flat fee of £2.00 per journey.
Bus fare:
£2.00

Entry to Dover Castle is free to members, for an annual fee of £69 for an individual. However, for the purpose of this calculation I’m assuming Tom is not a member, and that he had paid for his admission on the day.
Admission to castle:
£23.60

Bus fare back to the station:
£2.00

Total: £55.30

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How and when had Tom become aware of his ticketless status?

Had Tom even been aware that he’d dropped his ticket? To be honest, I shouldn’t think so. It’s the sort of thing you only discover hours later, when you need to fish the ticket out in order to board the train.

Was that when the discovery was made? Had Tom experienced a flash of alarm when he hadn’t found his ticket in his pocket when he arrived at the barriers? Had he felt disorientated when he couldn’t find the ticket that he could still see so clearly in his mind’s eye? Bewildered, perhaps he was seeing it in a but-it-must-be-there sense, although he couldn’t actually see it for real.

Maybe he’d given up rifling through his pockets and tried his wallet instead. No go. I expect he’d closed his wallet with a sigh, and then opened it again quickly, trying to catch its contents unawares, to grab the ticket before it could take the chance to hide again.

The knot in Tom’s chest would have grown, and a small voice would have made its presence felt.

‘How am I going to get home?’

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Tom’s Family & Friends Railcard would have been no help before 19:00 on a train back to the capital. Tom’s train home – the one he’d actually already paid for at 11:45 on the morning of his trip – was now going to cost him another £39.50.

I’ll just crunch those numbers anew:

Time spent travelling to and from the castle (minimum estimate, not including the journey each way between Tom’s house³ and Bellingham station):
4 hours 22 minutes

Time spent at castle (maximum estimate):
3 hours 55 minutes

Cost (not including food and drink):
£92.80

Value of time spent with family and friends in the summer holidays at a terrific and popular tourist attraction:
PRICELESS

And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Making the most of whatever time we have to spend exploring a castle – or indeed anywhere – with friends and family is what’s important, whoever those people are who have shared that concessionary fare on whichever train we’ve taken to get there.

Yes, Tom was ticketless, and I’m sure he was frustrated to discover its loss. But by golly, I bet he’d had a brilliant time at the castle, with even more of a story to tell now thanks to losing this orange flash that Jim had found in the grass.

Love,

Rebecca

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1. The Family & Friends Railcard can be purchased for £30 for a year, or £70 for three years. Up to four adults and four children save a third of the ticket price on eligible fares.
From thetrainline.com

2. A ‘sticky’ is what members of my family call a sweet snack purchased and consumed on a day out.

3. I don’t know where Tom lives. Obviously. 🙄