Warrington

‘Most people who have been to Crewe station have never been to Crewe.’ In a moment of serendipity, my train pulls into Crewe station at the exact moment I turn the page to begin the chapter ‘Changing Tracks’ in Chris Moss’s new travelogue Where Tourists Seldom Tread. In his Guardian column ‘Postcards from Britain’, Moss visits and reconsiders ‘improbable, bypassed and unloved’ destinations, such as Warrington, Gateshead, Paisley, Clacton-on-Sea – and Crewe, which my train from London has reached after no small delay. Moss is right, of course: I have travelled through Crewe more times than I have eaten disappointing Upper Crust baguettes, but I have never actually been into the town.

We don’t all get to achieve what we could have achieved in life. And yes, I know, so what? Tough luck. Cry me a river, build me a bridge and get over it. But, like it or not, some people really do have the odds stacked more heavily against them than others and yet somehow carry on regardless. In The Secret Painter, the scriptwriter Joe Tucker (Parents, Big Bad World) tells the true story of his Uncle Eric, born in 1932 – an ordinary man who never gave up. Let’s be honest, The Secret Painter could have been absolutely terrible.