It was Charles Dickens who wrote the story ‘a tale of two cities’ and he wrote it about London and Paris. If he were alive in the present age, however, he might have used his poetic license and used the description of the town Woking, England. If he had had the same experiences as me, he might have concluded that it was a place of two halves.
It was the worst of towns. I was struck by the urban banality of the place when I first visited the town. I parked in the station car park and all I could see was a branch of KFC and a distinct lack of a pleasing land marks. The station lacked a nice building. Even Slough, which is famous for its ugliness, has retained a pretty nice ex-GWR station. You'll understand why Woking did not leave me with a good first impression. My dissatisfaction continued. I left the station via the subway and was less than delighted with the smell. The street I walked down was full of rubbish and the people I saw were wearing too many gold sovereigns and chains to be attractive or healthy in the head.
In some ways, it was the best of towns. By contrast my second visit was considerably happier. I was on secondment to Lightwater Sainsbury, which is on the edge of Woking. This branch of Sainsbury is large, as it contains over 40 aisles and glory of glories – a home-shop with funky blue lighting. My task was to stack the shelves for the afternoon. The work was hardly taxing, though there were an unusually high number of people asking for directions which sometimes took me from my work. I must have helped at least 25 people find products over the course of 4 hours, which is around 5 times more than in my native store.
Outside the shop things continued to go well. The sun was up and the sky was a beautiful healthy blue. In the near distance the Church spire presented itself in a tasteful and friendly way. Petrol was a penny cheaper per litre than back home and I took the opportunity to fill up. All in all, my sojourn was rosy indeed.
The upshot of these two very different experiences is to make me feel I have wronged Woking. Perhaps it is an example of that most English of phenomena something that is in the middle of two extremes. I plan a third visit to provide a definitive impression of Woking. This trip will probably be after the exams so stay tuned.
It will be a far far better trip that I plan to this town, than I have ever planned before.
My thanks to Mr. Charles Dickens for his advice on some of the phrases used in this blog.
