All I need is a Train Ticket - and a Time Machine

Many my age might see a gap year as release from the extensive time spent controlled by term dates and exams. Thus I have friends who want to travel to America, Australia and India. The basic requirement is to be somewhere - anywhere - other. I wonder how many pupils, during an interminable Geography lesson on rainfall levels in Brazil, have found themselves studying those laminated World maps that curl on a wall or display board. The pastel coloured countries, adorned with names and black circles showing faraway cities where millions of people work and sleep and eat and laugh and argue, appear hugely more exciting than the basics of learning about hill-sheep farming. In Britain at least, years seven to nine (roughly from the age of eleven to fourteen) are a ripe time for cultivating such imagination – because not much really happens in the curriculum.

Modern travel makes adventure-based wishes easy and relatively straightforward (if one discounts airline-associated stress and working to save up for the ticket). Desire is in part stimulated by some kind of nagging feeling that there are bigger, better things if a border is crossed or a new continent plunged into. It’s no surprise that the idea of travel or working abroad is popular with teenagers. We’ve spent, on average, fourteen years following strict rules that often have little resemblance to the way the rest of life works… My educational trajectory was one in which I adored my village primary school (where we had the grand total of forty pupils – all of us tearing around the playground playing ‘tag’ or ‘stuck in the mud’); was fairly dissatisfied in all but a few inspirationally taught subjects at my state secondary (that was judged ‘unsatisfactory’ by Ofsted in my penultimate year); then landed finally at my state sixth form college. Here the considerable pressures and commitments are tempered by passionate teachers and subjects of genuine interest. Right now, with exams in the next two days, coupled with a nationwide education system geared towards tightly timed essays that tick all the right boxes (as opposed to promoting an actual interest in knowledge and learning) I have been left wanting to escape. Just a flight of fancy as the chill of January and relentless study becomes undeniable.

I’ve read classic travel books (specifically Laurie Lee and Patrick Leigh Fermor), watched films set against dizzying vistas and, like many before me, fantasized about the goings-on beyond the cold seas of this small country. However, my notion of travel was – and still is - largely romantic; primarily informed by literature and tales from previous decades. I tend to imagine Orient Express style sleeper trains that will deliver me to the Onion domes of a Moscow inhabited by the characters of Anna Karenina or members of the Ballet Russes – rather than RyanAir and fractious hours bickering with family members when the plane is delayed. I want to travel with monogrammed trunks rather than an ugly (but ultimately practical) suitcase, or alternately rely on the kindness of strangers while wandering through Europe. Such ideas are now just wisps of smoke – pretty to look at, but quite impossible to grab hold of and physically experience.

Travel has been globalised. At first glance, this appears completely positive. And to some extent it is – I doubt that without technological advances my family would have managed to visit my grandma in the glacial expanses of Alaska, or enjoyed the kind of European week-long holidays that are possible. I am of course grateful for these advantages, but there is still a tinge of another feeling – not exactly sadness, but a kind of longing for something never experienced, something that existed seventy or eighty years previously. Wherever travel takes us now, there are invariably the drooping arches of a McDonalds – with Ibiza going as far as to provide a giant facsimile of the British high street on a Saturday night.

My notion of a journey imagines total immersion in another culture. Does that still exist? When I was complaining to a friend about my desire to go around the world in 80 days (but with the aid of a time machine), she suggested that one just had to search further afield. Is this the case? Is it still possible to emulate the kind of voyages that great writers and adventurers embarked on? Or has technology not only removed some of the challenge, but some of the spirit of such a trip? Maybe it's the curse of the human race to assume that anything other than our immediate experience is going to be better – whether this means another county, or in my case, another time.

In a homage to a Russia that has probably never actually existed (apart from in folk stories), here is an outfit with embroidery and large skirts aplenty. The stunning blazer is Moschino, formerly owned by and then given to me by my fabulous Fairy Godmother (along with the hair clip), and I added a vintage taffeta skirt that once belonged to my mum – she bought it from a jumble sale. The tights are actually two separate pairs, with the adjoining legs tied together and tucked out of sight, while the shoes were from a charity shop. 

Also, I was immensely pleased to be told that I have been long-listed for the Company Style Bloggers awards (and so happy to see so many of my blogging friends in the different categories listed too!) If you enjoy my blog then you can vote for me - or for whoever your favourites are - here. 

All I need is a Train Ticket - and a Time Machine 2012-01-15T11:06:00-08:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Unknown