Part One Of Three
My journey from Preston, Lancashire to Staines Upon Thames in Surrey for the Saturday 22nd June AGM of The Inn Sign Society proved to be a sharp contrast of The Worst Of Times And The Best Of Times. All the negative experiences relate to my accommodation, and in one place, absence of accommodation. Everything else about the trip was lovely.
The journey was a complex leap through multiple modes of transport, though on the most part I expected this.
My outgoing journey itinery. 1/. Bus from home to Preston Train station. 2/. Train from Preston to London Euston. 3/. Walk from Euston inter-city station to the external Euston underground station. 4/. Underground from Euston to Tottenham Court Road. 5/. Underground to Paddington. 6/. Overground train to Slough. 7/. Bus (I could have got a train) to Staines. 8/. Bus to Wraysbury.
My pre-booked (via Booking.Com accommodation was to a guest house in Wraysbury at Mill Place. I arrived there, a few minutes walk from the bus stop, to see a very basic housing estate. Number 13 was one flat in a big residential block. Nothing indicated it offering guest accommodation. A resident, owner of a flat within, let me in. I found there was no reception, not notices regarding accommodation, no keys, nothing. My phone was out of both credit and battery so I was unable to ring the number I had for the room booked. The chap who owned the neighbouring one suggested I go to the block’s estate agent in the village, a twenty minute walk away. The heatwave and hauling my luggage on castors was now becoming an endurance test. I stopped briefly at a lovely pub, The Perseverance for a break and a quick beer and went to the estate agents. They told me the owner of the flat I was booked into had been ordered by them to stop sub-letting the flat to guests as it breached her tenancy agreement. They were concerned that she was a/. still doing this and b/. taking the money from a guest with zero effort to alert them that the place was inaccessible. They found efforts to phone her were not getting her phone answered at all.
Recovering my money over this fiasco was a problem for after I got back to Preston, My worry now was where to stay instead. Wraysbury has no other accommodation. I knew there were places to stay in Staines itself though I expected them to be a bit dearer. I had settled on the Wraysbury guest house as it was modestly priced for two nights and a commute to and from Staines.
I walked to the train station, midway between the flat that wasn’t, and the estate agents and got a train to Staines. On advice I headed round to the nearby Traveloldge to find it fully booked. As it was Ascot week at the racetrack, most places in London and the Southern Counties were booked up. I was starting to panic and pictured myself spending a night on a park bench. After several more ‘sorry no vacancies’ alerts, I was tipped off about a pub-hotel that might take me in. My struggle was not however fully resolved even there as part two will show.
All photos taken by me.
Arthur Chappell.
Links
Part Two Part Two https://arthurchappell.wordpress.com/2024/06/23/3058/
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