Peter Rhodes on slavery, mail trains and the seductive lure of life in the Lords
Clickety-clunk, clickety-clunk. That was the night mail, crossing the border. A new generation of mail trains will soon be heading from London to Glasgow, helping to meet the demands of home shopping in the internet age. It will be all-electric and, I dare say, a lot smoother than the original steam version, immortalised in that glorious 1936 documentary, Night Mail.
And yet whatever the hardware, the prospect of staff expertly sorting the mail in the wee small hours, as their travelling post office pulls up Beattock, has a romance all of its own. It's a job to be proud of. And no, you can't do it from home.
Following reports on how many households have less than £1,000 in savings, a dramatic levelling-up sounds attractive. If, in some great fairness project, Britain's total net value could be divided equally among all 60 million of us, we would all be millionaires. The snag? Within a couple of years some would be billionaires, most would be comfortably-off and some would be skint. Slippery stuff, money.
