Taking the coach - an experience that'll change your life

By James Stone

Or so the Divine Comedy once sang. About a train, actually. Whenever I've taken a coach anywhere in the UK, a huge range of emotions have crossed my face, and smiling has only been one of them. However, I can honestly say a good old-fashioned coach trip is an utterly unique experience, and I'd recommend everyone takes such a trip at least once.

My first long journey was from Victoria Coach Station to Killarney, in the Republic of Ireland. This was an eighteen-hour trip, a mere commercial break in US Greyhound terms, but it will be forever impressed upon my mind.

Whenever I take the coach I always feel something like Sir David Attenborough, discovering a series of rare, exciting yet puzzling new species. You're locked in a metal box for several hours with manifestations of humankind that you imagined existed only in the movies.

There really are children who have the stamina to kick the back of your seat for ten solid hours in a row, and mothers who amiably flick through magazines and say nothing. Those people who start mobile conversations by yelling "HELLO! I CAN'T TALK - I'M ON THE COACH!" really do exist. And if you ever doubted a service station baked potato could cost more than £8.50, think again.

However, you'll discover mental reserves and strengths of character you never realised you had. You really will restrain yourself from throttling the small child and hurling abuse at its parent. You won't complain when the chap in front of you ends up throwing his seat back so far you can see up his nose. And you'll realise that when push comes to shove, you actually can sit under a faulty jet of frosty air conditioning in the middle of a January night.

And you do meet some quite incredible people. Somewhere near Cork in Ireland, an elderly farmer clambered on board and cheerily explained that he was taking himself off to hospital because he'd "just broken his leg a bit" falling off a wall he was building. These people, I have to hand it to them, are just plain hard.

After seeing most of Wales in the small hours, you will drop off for a few moments of fitful slumber. You then will awaken, still exhausted, to find that something appears to have died in your mouth and you can only turn your head one way. However, when you finally tumble out of the coach, wherever your destination may be, I can guarantee one thing.

Your holiday will somehow be all the sweeter because on some very profound level, you'll know you earned the right to be there.