London to Crewe via Camden Town and Milton Keynes

So another, seriously, overdue couple of thank yous.

The first is to Dami at a Unite Student building between Camden Town and Kings Cross on St Pancras Way.  

So there's a bit of backstory here, so bear with me...

There is a fabulous (new to me) app call Printt App - check it out at https://printtapp.com/ - which if you're a student let's you print stuff for free* but with advertising.  So no good for that final dissertation but perfect for those things you want to read offline or work on in draft.

(*It used to be totally free but as of mid April they now charge a small postage fee for delivery).

You could upload the material on the app and it would be mailed back to you within a couple of days or, some universities have installed Printt friendly printers where you can print out your stuff via the app.

photo courtesy of Unite website

Anyway, during March (I told you this was a long overdue thank you) I needed some stuff printed and normally I upload to the app and the next day or two later, voila it appears.  But we're now at five days and various things I had uploaded hadn't arrived so I contacted them via twitter, @printtapp, and sure enough they were having a problem with their delivery system and advised me to go to a nearby 'station' that I would be able to find via their app.

photo courtesy of google maps

Hence my turning up at Unite.  Now, it turns out that Printt think anyone can walk into their stations and use their app but for security reasons, (which makes sense when you think about it), no they can't.  However, we were met by Dami in reception and I explained our dilemma to him.  

photo courtesy of Unite website

Dami was fabulous, having pleaded our case and checked with the supervisor, Dami made an exception for me and my friend (also needing some printing done), and we were allowed to go up to their very nice and impressive study room to use their Printt printer.



Dami couldn't have been nicer or more helpful while making clear that it was against policy but that he and his supervisor were making an exception.  Thank you both for being human and Dami, thank you for the laughs too!







Meanwhile, also overdue, I want to thank Marc, a senior conductor on London Northwestern Railway.  


















Travelling from Euston to Crewe is one of those journeys where your tickets can, depending on how much you paid, be only used at certain times or more importantly, on certain train line companies since different companies run the same route.

On boarding this LNR train, over the tannoy we heard an announcement about the tickets, which ones were valid etc etc, and then a different ending; the conductor added that since he really didn't like having to sell new tickets could everyone check theirs now before leaving the station and get off if necessary.  This little bit of humour added to the routine message made us all look up and acknowledge that someone was even speaking.

photo courtesy of LNR

Then we were off, and after a short while another announcement over the tannoy.  The conductor asked us all a question; "In 1934 what did a Yorkshireman, Percy Shaw lay the first of in this day? No Googling, I will tell you the answer before I leave the train at Milton Keynes.".

Well suddenly everyone in the carriage was laughing and smiling and looking at each other. It changed the atmosphere totally from the usual British one of everyone ignoring each other and just being in our private little worlds to one of community.  We were all discussing the question too and certainly in our carriage, we weren't checking it on the web.

When Marc came along to check our tickets, he was all smiles.  A really lovely attitude when asking to see the tickets, (unlike some conductors who assume you are a criminal without a valid ticket), and spent some time with Maggie, a giggling 4 month old on her first train journey.













I talked to him about how his attitude had affected the whole carriage and he said that's exactly what he wanted it to do, for strangers to talk to each other.  And it worked, I talked to three people in the carriage that day that I wouldn't have done otherwise.

So Marc, thank you and one more pic of that terrific smile!

Oh and the answer.... cats eyes!

Now, it's your turn.  Do you want to say thank you to anyone?  Well this is the place to do it.

If you would like to write a post to thank someone or tell us something nice that happened just get in touch and we would love to hear from you and to spread the thanks.
You don't have to know how to do the formatting and stuff, we'll help you with all that.  We just need some words and preferably some nice smiley photos.  (don't forget to ask if you can take them).  This blog is for you, somewhere for you to have your say.  Thanks.

....And if you don't want to write a whole post, then comments are lovely too.  Thanks.