IN June I wasn’t allowed to drive.

No reader, I hadn’t been banned. I’d had an operation which had severely restricted the movement of my left arm.

My old Skoda was handed to Mummy Himelfield for safe keeping and I was forced onto the train to work.

It’s true that once you’re on the train you don’t have to concentrate on driving. It should in theory be more relaxing but, it being British and all, it isn’t.

Most of the services were on time or delayed by a few minutes. But, as we all know, British trains aren’t clean, comfortable or quick.

If you’re unlucky and a clanking rust-bucket of a local train shows up, it’s like being deported back to a dirtier, noisier version of the 1980s.

What’s more, British trains are for the main part more expensive than driving the same distance.

If our government is serious about persuading citizens onto public transport it needs more regulation.

I’m told our nationalised rail service in the 1970s was the subject of some humour but privatisation has turned our network into the laughing stock of our European cousins.

Compare our railways to that of France, Holland or even Spain, where it’s well maintained, cheap and rapid.

So no, my train journeys weren’t at all relaxing and I felt my neck and shoulder muscles ease when my car keys were handed back.

One journey, however, was rather enjoyable thanks to the country’s most sarcastic conductor.

As I boarded he announced we’d be stopping at ‘exotic locations such as Dewsbury and Garforth’ before the service terminated at ‘the industrial wonderland that is Middlesbrough’.

He dissuaded passengers from using the hand drier in the toilets because it had ‘all the power of a gentle summer breeze’.

Mr Conductor also warned us not to put hand towels down the loo as we’d be ‘paddling before we got out’.

For once the extra cost and greater inconvenience seemed worth it.