A colleague held out his hand for my ticket, but was imperiously waved aside.

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 124.  

Some time during that summer of 1948—it must have been only a few weeks before we sailed for the Caribbean—I had a short spell of leave and went to stay with some friends in Norfolk. On my last day there—it was a Sunday—the telephone rang while we were having breakfast. It was my mother, who had just been offered two tickets for Così fan tutte that same afternoon at Glyndebourne. Could I be there by four-thirty? Having never been to Glyndebourne, I was enormously excited. I was returning to London anyway that evening; this simply meant taking a rather earlier train. Of course I could, I said, and hung up.

It all proved rather more difficult than I had expected. After three years, England had still not recovered from the war. The timetable revealed one very slow Sunday train, leaving in an hour from a station fifteen miles away. Fortunately it was late, or I should never have caught it; and it was a good deal later still when it finally crawled into Liverpool Street. A mood of relative serenity during the early stages of the journey had long since given way to one of panic. There was only one possible connection to be made. Had I arrived on time, I should have had over an hour to get from Liverpool Street to Victoria; I now had exactly twenty-five minutes. Mercifully it was a Sunday, the City streets were a lot emptier than they are now and there was a waiting taxi. I offered the driver double fare if he made it. He looked doubtful, but his response was magnificent. We hurtled across London and arrived at Victoria with a minute to spare. There was no time to buy “only to hurl my suitcase and myself into the last, rapidly accelerating carriage and to fall, half dead but happy, into an empty seat.

We were among green fields before I recovered sufficiently to size up my fellow travelers. There were two ladies bedecked, as I remember, in yards of mauve chiffon, looking like large flustered moths. Only at the ankles did the chiffon stop, giving place to intricate systems of gold and silver strapping. Their escorts wore stiff collars, winged like archangels; one of them sported one of those square, single-breasted black evening waistcoats now found only on the older and seedier waiters in French provincial cafés. Suddenly I became conscious of an almost tangible atmosphere of disapproval. I was an outsider, an intruder. I had forced myself upon their company and in doing so had cheapened both myself and them. Sartorially, I was letting down the side.

A terrible thought struck me. I was only eighteen and had spent most of the past three years abroad; but had I not heard somewhere that at Glyndebourne evening dress was de rigueur? Perhaps without it I should be refused admittance, bringing disgrace upon my mother and rendering pointless this whole ghastly journey. With relief, I remembered that my dinner jacket was in my suitcase. (People changed for dinner a good deal more often in those days than they do now.) I would brave the disapproval a little longer; then I would betake myself and suitcase along the corridor and emerge on Lewes platform metamorphosed.

Twenty minutes before our scheduled arrival time I was locked safely in the loo, stripped to my underpants and struggling into a white shirt, when suddenly the train stopped. I could see nothing through the frosted glass, but I heard, all too clearly, a voice of genteel doom: “Brighton, this is Brighton. The special Glyndebourne train leaves for Lewes in five minutes from platform six. Brighton, this is Brighton. . . .”

I felt like Job, or Titus Andronicus. When would this fearful slumber have an end? No one had told me that we had to change trains. Speed, by now, was a good deal more important than elegance, even than decency. Still, I could hardly race across Brighton station in my underwear. Shirt, trousers, and shoes seemed the best compromise. Stuffing everything else huggermugger into the suitcase, I fled down the platform—remembering only at the barrier that I had no ticket. There was no time to explain; neither, however, was there any need to. The ticket collector, after one incredulous look, knew instinctively that his duty was to see me either on to the Glyndebourne train or into the nearest police station. He took—I gratefully record it—the correct decision. Leaving his barrier unattended, he seized the suitcase and hustled me to platform six. A colleague held out his hand for my ticket, but was imperiously waved aside. The train was already grunting into motion. Doors were banging, flags waving. This, I realized, was not only a nightmare; it was a recurring nightmare. I had done all this before; the only difference was that this time I was half naked. It is not easy to jump into a moving train with one hand clutching a suitcase and the other holding up one’s trousers, but I made it.

The last stage of the journey threatened to be the worst. This time there was no empty seat, just eight more passengers, obviously all from the same stable as the other lot, all looking like something out of a cartoon by H.M. Bateman—shocked, horrified and personally affronted. I could think only of escape—down the corridor again. But this time there was no corridor. I was trapped, and at bay. With what little power of speech remained, I tried to explain the situation; and then the miracle happened. They all started to laugh. Better still, they helped. A gentleman took my suitcase and held it open on his knees. A lady raised aloft a tiny mirror while I tied my tie. Somebody else held me steady in the lurching train while I put on my socks. By the time we reached Lewes I was, I think, relatively presentable. I thanked them all, but not nearly enough.