Someone on my MA in Creative Writing recommended The People on Platform 5 by Clare Pooley and I finally got round to it, fittingly, on my commute last October. It’s not the sort of thing I usually read, but I liked the premise of strangers on the same train carriage who normally abide by the rules of commuting (don’t talk, never eat hot food etc) suddenly getting to know each other.

The protagonist is Iona, a fabulous fifty something lesbian who commutes with her dog, flask of tea and cup and saucer and who is feared by all who sit around her. The inciting incident, as it’s know in the writing trade, is when a man opposite her nearly chokes to death and she steps in to save him. He is Piers, whose self-satisfied, man-spreading, City trader existence is not all it’s cracked up to be. His near death is how Sanjay, a nurse who suffers from panic attacks, gets involved, as does Emmie, the woman Sanjay has fallen for, never having spoken to her, who is miserable in her job in advertising, and Martha, who is being bullied at school. This motley cast of characters are drawn together by Iona and one by one they face up to their lives falling apart and then help each other to put them back to together.

This is definitely a feel-good, fun and well written book that brightened up my commute, though I’m not sure I’ll be chatting to my fellow passengers anytime soon.