I was feeling very worried and under the weather a few
weeks ago. I went for a series of long bus rides just to get away from things
and see some new areas, buildings, houses and parks. Perhaps I should have
stayed in until the bad feelings passed, as on one occasion there was a minor incident.
I was on a single-decker bus that stopped at the foot of
a steep hill to pick up some people. When the driver tried to move on, it just
made strange noises and juddered a bit. He was unable to get it going again,
despite making every effort. He radioed for help, and was instructed to get us
all off so that we could catch the next bus.
As the driver stepped off the bus, he turned to me and
said:
“This is all your fault!”
He was only joking, but many a true word is spoken in
jest.
No one was inconvenienced for very long: the next bus
came along in under 10 minutes. The driver obviously appreciated a break in
routine, a little excitement and the chance to have a cigarette. Even so, I did
feel a little guilty.
I have had strange experiences with malfunctioning electrical
equipment in the past, always when I was feeling very jangled. I also
remembered a day many years ago when something similar happened.
I had been exploring the area around a small town in
Kent, and decided that the time had come to go home. I took a bus to the
railway station, but it never reached it. This was a single-decker too. It was
halfway up a steep hill when someone standing outside a church waved at the
driver. Although there was no bus stop there, he stopped for her. On this
occasion too, the bus couldn’t move on afterwards. We all had to share a taxi
to the station.
While I didn’t benefit in any way from the recent
incident, the earlier one gave the woman a chance to talk to a captive
audience: we learned that she was a carer for her aged mother and was obviously
having trouble coping. She had been in the church just to get away for a while.
Perhaps there was a touch of psychological black magic in
the case. Perhaps her inner state caused the bus to break down, and her wish
for someone to talk to was granted - at a cost of some mild inconvenience to
others.
Diana Wynne Jones, who knew a lot about witches, had this
to say:
“Another thing that stops me living a quiet life is my travel jinx. This is hereditary: my mother has it and so does my son Colin. Mine works mostly on trains. Usually the engine breaks, but once an old man jumped off a moving train I was on and sent every train schedule in the country haywire for that day.“
“Another thing that stops me living a quiet life is my travel jinx. This is hereditary: my mother has it and so does my son Colin. Mine works mostly on trains. Usually the engine breaks, but once an old man jumped off a moving train I was on and sent every train schedule in the country haywire for that day.“
From Reflections: On the Magic of Writing by Diana Wynne Jones
and this, which comes from a letter she wrote
in 1996:
“My travel jinx is infinitely inventive. Most of my family have declared their intention of never travelling with me again - this was when the electric wires fell down over the train we were in and stranded us under live cables for most of an afternoon. A lot of the trouble is electrical - under that heading you can count sudden thunderstorms and flash floods - but cars and railway engines break too in a other ways, doors fall out of planes and if all else fails there is always a vast agricultural machine proceeding very slowly in front when everyone needs to be somewhere in a hurry.
There is also Birmingham. Birmingham bobs up in front of me when I try to go anywhere in England and I find myself in that city instead In America I just get Birmingham on the phone, and the jinx resorts to loose horses and suddenly falling trees. And cars driven by wild Chinese cut across in front all over the world In Europe there tend to be wasps or giant ants, or deep ravines under the back wheels of the bus I am in. A magician once offered to buy my jinx - very correctly, at midday in a marketplace - because he collected curses, but to tell the truth I find it too interesting to part with. I always wonder what it will think of next.”
“My travel jinx is infinitely inventive. Most of my family have declared their intention of never travelling with me again - this was when the electric wires fell down over the train we were in and stranded us under live cables for most of an afternoon. A lot of the trouble is electrical - under that heading you can count sudden thunderstorms and flash floods - but cars and railway engines break too in a other ways, doors fall out of planes and if all else fails there is always a vast agricultural machine proceeding very slowly in front when everyone needs to be somewhere in a hurry.
There is also Birmingham. Birmingham bobs up in front of me when I try to go anywhere in England and I find myself in that city instead In America I just get Birmingham on the phone, and the jinx resorts to loose horses and suddenly falling trees. And cars driven by wild Chinese cut across in front all over the world In Europe there tend to be wasps or giant ants, or deep ravines under the back wheels of the bus I am in. A magician once offered to buy my jinx - very correctly, at midday in a marketplace - because he collected curses, but to tell the truth I find it too interesting to part with. I always wonder what it will think of next.”
All this does sound like a curse or sabotage to me!
There is no travel jinx on me. I have had many uneventful
bus rides since the incident reported above.
Unlike Diana Wynne Jones, I prefer
the quiet life.
