When is getting a coach ever simple for me? I got to Shudehall Interchange to find that there was a small queue of three people waiting for the London coach, this is nothing strange as the majority of passengers will sit in seats until the coach pulls up and then join the queue.

The coach was due in at 5:35pm and at 5:30pm the controller broke the news that the coach was sitting at a service station in Preston as the driver had pulled in a for a driver change and the replacement driver was nowhere to be found.

The controller went on to explain that he had a spare driver at Shudehall and also a spare coach but as there were passengers on the coach stranded in Preston he could not take us to London without those passengers.

The coach stuck in Preston didn’t move until the original driver came back from his break and agreed to take the coach to London, it arrived at Manchester at 8:30pm – THREE HOURS LATE. There were no spare seats to sit on in the bus station, and we were advised not to leave the bus station, so many of us stood in line for those three hours rather than sit on the pigeon shit-covered floor.

When the coach did finally arrive I was in a lot of pain in my right arm and legs and was in no mood for people to push in and used my suitcase to keep my fourth place in the queue. When I got into a table seat I immediately pulled out my laptop and made it clear that I intended to work, this caused a few people to look at the spare seat next to me, realise they would not get much of the table, and then move on with an annoyed expression on their faces.

We arrived in London at 1am in the morning. I felt sorry for a couple sitting across the aisle from me who had travelled from Scotland to London and then had to jump off the coach and race to meet their 1am coach to Exeter.