Manners Maketh Man

Reclining seats are never the most comfortable way to sleep. My husband Stephen can sleep in them, but then he can sleep anywhere – lying down, standing, sitting – he is good at sleeping. Once, when he was a child, a huge old tree in the garden was hit by lightning and came crashing down. Parts of it were found half a mile away.

“What storm?” asked Stephen in the morning.

Most people, however, find reclining seats very uncomfortable and I would under no circumstances attempt to sleep in one. But at least if you have a reclining seat on a cross-channel ferry you can reckon on getting somewhere to put your bag and a bit of floor to stretch out on next to it. And this, as an experienced reclining-seat-hater, was what I did.

Emily and Gareth, on the seats behind, bravely tried their seats for a while and then, realising that sleeping on a mattress of hedgehogs would be more comfortable, opted for the floor, leaving their bags, coats etc on the seats next to them.

All went well until the three of us were woken at half past two in the morning by the interesting thumping sound of a bag being thrown at Emily’s head. As we dazedly sat up, we realised that two middle-aged men had taken everything off Gareth and Emily’s seats, thrown it all at Gareth and Emily, and plonked themselves down in their seats.

I entered the fray as Gareth politely enquired what the men were doing.

“You weren’t using the seats and I’m sure you shouldn’t be here – have you paid for them?” said one of the men in a tone of the kind usually used for addressing convicted serial killers.

“Yes, we have,” said Gareth (correctly). Meanwhile Emily gestured at me to explain that most of her possessions were now under the men’s feet.

My first thought in such circumstances is usually to turn into Schoolteacher From Hell and in this role I would frighten anybody. However, as it was the middle of the night and I didn’t want to wake the other passengers, I went to the information desk, told them the story and asked them, very politely with just that teensy hint of incipient psychopath, to remove the two men.

Which, thankfully, they did, and the men went off without more than a bit of grumbling.

Stephen, of course, slept through the whole thing,

But why did these two supposedly respectable fiftysomethings pick on Emily and Gareth’s seats when the whole of Club Class was full of people sleeping on the floor with their bags on the seats?

Because they are young, dressed in black, Emily has piercings, Gareth has long hair, and so the men, having a startling lack of self-awareness, naturally assumed that Gareth and Emily were both yobs.

Wrong! Where’s Johnny Depp with a gangplank when you need him?

- And now we are in the beautiful village of Montreal which looks like the set of Chocolat – hardly surprising as Chocolat was filmed only a few kilometres away. So more on that soon – and many thanks to Graham for the use of his computer.