I was travelling to London from Birmingham on a London Midland train last Friday afternoon when I came face to face with a thief. As I relaxed on the way home from a brain bustingly motivating meeting with Richard Baker, I became aware that my bag and I were parting company. I stood and turned as the guy sitting behind me on the train released my bag and sat back down in his seat. I didn’t know what to do, it really unnerved me. I just glowered at him and he got up and left the carriage. I sat down, my bag now tightly clasped, and shook. I felt nervous.
The train guard came through shortly after and asked to see my ticket. I blurted out ‘another passenger has just tried to steal my bag!’ The train guard introduced herself as Julie Knight and asked me to explain what happened. I told her and Julie calmly reassured me that the cctv cameras would have picked up the attempted theft. Was the thief still on the train we wondered? I described him and Julie went to make sure he was still aboard the train. He was.
Julie returned and we talked some more when the thief reappeared. He skulked around and Julie smartly turned the conversation to other things. He must have figured something was up because no sooner had the thief left the carriage, he reappeared and sat down right behind me. Julie asked what he was doing. ‘I just want to sit here in first class’ the thief replied. ‘Have you got a first class ticket? Julie asked. It turned out that he had no ticket of any kind.
Julie managed to phone ahead and arranged for the train to be met by security at Northampton. She explained to me that this was her stop too, she was due to board another train heading back north. After we pulled in the doors remained locked and after a bit of Keystone Kops to-ing and fro-ing, Julie and a colleague handed the thief over to the security team at the station. Julie ran back up the platform and hopped back on the train just to double check I was OK, and then ran off, keen to ensure the next train she was working on was not delayed.
The rest of my journey home unfolded uneventfully.
As I reflected on what happened, several things struck me about Julie:
She told me her name – straight away that reassured me
She took the matter seriously – and stayed very calm and relaxed throughout
She was courteous to the thief, to a fault, doing her level best not to arouse any suspicion or adverse reaction in him
She was determined to help apprehend the guy
She came back to see me, to say thanks and goodbye before dashing off to give good service to the passengers on the next train
Julie probably thinks she was just ‘doing my job’, and she would be right. And what a good job that is. It must be tough working on the railways. When things go to plan, i.e. when the trains run to time, well that’s just what we as customers expect. It’s hard to exceed expectations, it’s not like the train can arrive early is it? I imagine it’s a pretty thankless task. Thanks Julie.
I hope the good people at London Midland pick up on this heroic tale.