It’s a lovely September Monday morning in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. Schools have gone back, the summer language students have left, most of the DFLs (down from Londons, the second-home weekenders) have returned to the city. Soon the restless house martins will be off, too. The island is slipping gently into quiet mode.
But the ticket office at Ryde Esplanade railway station is busy. Two women with a little black dog are talking to the man at the counter; another woman waits in line. Throughout the morning, there is a steady stream of customers, sometimes forming a queue at the ticket office. That is the shiny, new ticket office, opened this year as part of a £10m upgrade to the town’s seafront transport interchange. There is a ticket machine in the station, too, but no one uses it while I am there.
