Alan
Working for thirty years as Ticket Office Manager at Teddington Station, I became something of a local celebrity because I met so many people each day and shared a laugh and joke with them when they bought their tickets.
Even now, ten years after I retired, so many people still stop and have a chat. It’s the reason I didn’t leave Teddington when I retired, I had plans to go and live by the sea, but the people here are so fantastic and the friendships I built over that time are so lovely. I wouldn’t want to lose that.
My years in the Teddington ticket office were fantastic and I always wanted to make sure customers got the best possible price on a ticket or the best possible information for their journey. But I always wanted to do it with a smile and a bit of fun. I’ve always had a very active sense of humour and if you’re working for twelve hours a day, sometimes even longer, you can’t be doing that and stay sane if you haven’t got a smile on your face. So, I always had a bit of fun when someone bought a ticket
I was cracking jokes all day long and I was getting a response from the customers all day long. I’d often say to them when they bought a ticket: “That’ll be six million pounds please” or I’d say Good Evening when it was early in the morning. The customers seemed to love it because it made the start to their working day a bit brighter, and mine too.
Only once did someone not really get it. When they bought their ticket I said “That’ll be 3.7 million pounds please”, and they got abusive and wrote to the management to complain that I was trying to overcharge them. But I got so many lovely letters from other happy customers that one like that was water off a duck’s back to me.
