The Voice enjoyed this snippet from Hugh Muir’s diary in today’s Guardian:
Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat MP for the distant seat of Orkney and Shetland, received a parliamentary travel expenses form, which asked: “What is your nearest mainline railway station?” He contacted the Fees Office to explain that his constituency is in the middle of the North Sea but was told he had to answer. OK then, he said: Oslo. The member for Smarty-pants west.
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9 Comments
Wouldn’t Bergen be closer?
The old ones are the best! I heard that one years ago, but it was Jo Grimond and Bergen then.
It’s an old one. I like it but it wasn’t true for Grimond either, as Alastair lives (last time I heard) about a mile from Jo’s house. Perhap 30 miles as the puffin flies.
Ihave tested it with a pair of compasses from Northern Shetland (Unst or Muckle Flugga). It’s too close to call there given the issues of map projections.
If true I like the version (of a non political type).
WW2: Call up papers arrive in a house. Included is a form which asks for name of nearest railway station for a travel warrant to be issued.
Answer: My nearest stion is in enemy hands.
The nearest railway station to the the island of Hoy (one of Orkney’s South Isles) is Thurso, in Caithness on Scotland’s northern coast. It’s about 7 miles away.
Alistair Carmichael’s home would be perhaps a dozen miles further on, in/near Finstown on Mainland Orkney.
Bergen or Oslo would be much further away.
However, it’s certainly said in Shetland that Bergen (not Oslo) is the nearest railway station, though I’m not sure how true that is.
As Lorna says, the old ones are the best.
In the version I first heard over 40 years ago, Jo Grimond was recounting it as one of his first bits of casework after election – a distraught mother from the Shetlands whose son, on National Service, had been thrown into the glasshouse for accurately putting Bergen as his nearest railway station on his application for a travel warrant when granted a weekend pass after his six weeks basic training.
My other favourite of the same vintage is due to George Mackie, commenting on the voyaging nature of his constituents. George, on his way back to the House, boards his train at Georgemas Junction to find one other (elderly) passenger ensconced in the carriage. Not a word is exchanged until the train crosses the bridge into Inverness, when his companion issues a heartfelt sigh and remarks “I always feel that is the worse half of the journey over.”
On a strictly mathematical basis, if it is a midway point, the old gentleman’s destination would be Edinburgh, and George responded that he tended to agree, but he was going on to London, only to be dumbfounded by the offhand reply “and I, young man, am going to Hong Kong.”
According to http://www.mapcrow.info Lerwick is 222 miles from Bergen, but 211 miles from Aberdeen.
What does the Fees Office mean by “mainline” station?
Network Rail as against London Underground?
If so, what appalling metrocentricity.
Parts of Shetland might possibly be nearer to Bergen than Thurso – but in the case of Orkney a Norwegian station is comic, but incorrect.
Google Maps’ distance measurement tool gives 290km from Norwik, northern Shetland to Thurso. 340km to Bergen.
However, Thurso is on the Far North Line, which meets the Highland Main Line at Inverness, 420km from Norwick.
So, if Bergen is a “main line” railway station, then it would be the closest main line station to at least part of the constituency, but not Lerwick. Therefore, it could have been true for Grimmond’s constituent.
The word “Norway is politically charged”, causing, as it did, the resignation of a Conservative Prime Minister who had a parliamentary majority,
to be replaced by “an abler man” (Winston S Churchill).
Norwegians did heroical things during World War 2 as authorised by the Norwegian Government in exile in London.
A Norwegian destroyer participated at D-Day, but was sunk by a torpedo fired by an E-Boat which missed battleships Warspite and Ramillies. “The E-boats did not wait to observe results.” The source does not quote the number/s of casualties.
The Struggle for Europe, Chester Wilmot, Collins, London.
The word “Norway” also caused the resignation of a Speaker of the House of Commons, although Norway was not his personal responsibility.