A couple of weeks ago a producer from the BBC contacted me through Twitter, asking if I’d like to be part of a radio programme for the World Service. Of course I jumped at the chance, and next thing I knew I was being wired up with a hi-tech collar mic to go talking to people on the District Line (again) with two producers watching from nearby. We went right down to the end of the line and back, starting conversations and then moving carriages, ending with them interviewing me. Doing things a little differently let me reflect a bit on the project and my experiences so far, as well as talking to six very different people.

Being followed around whilst talking to people didn’t feel strange at all. There’s always a carriage full of people watching and listening to you, and whenever I start talking to someone I tend to forget about everyone else anyway. So that was fine but a strange thing that we had to do was to ask people’s permission to use the recording afterwards. This felt a bit treacherous if I’m honest. People walk off with a sense of having had a nice conversation and then you confront them saying ‘Actually it was all for a thing we’re doing.’ I suppose that’s what I’m always doing for this blog, but telling them felt like a bit of a ‘gotcha’ moment. By the time the conversations had finished, I repeatedly forgot that I was supposed to ask and had to chase people down the platform. With one woman I even blurted out “I usually do this anyway!” at the end.

The first guy I spoke to – a self-employed carpenter (plenty of work apparently) on his way to get a new passport so he could go on holiday to Greece – actually spotted the mic pretty early on in the conversation and was a bit cagey throughout because of it. He was a quiet guy who seemed like he kept himself to himself anyway but was friendly enough. I suppose he was playing along. It reminded me of why I don’t tell people I talk to about the blog. Although it’s a little dishonest, I think you get a better picture of what they are really like – they’re not playing up to anything.

So far, most of the conversations I’ve had have been around central London, I haven’t gone the length of a line talking to people like we did this time. I got quite a sense of changing areas as we went across from East to West, something (being new to the city) I hadn’t really considered before. The second guy I spoke to, a retired gent who used to be in advertising, on his way to take part in a bridge tournament, couldn’t have been more of an upper-class West London stereotype. Posh as the PM (I think he said he went to Oxford but can’t quite remember), he quizzed me on my university and prospects like I’d just started dating his daughter. Still, he was very pleasant, explaining bridge to me (“I play when I can… when the wife lets me!”), and we had quite a laugh in the end.

Also, like in the last post, he actually started the conversation with me (“At least the train drivers aren’t on strike,” harrumph!). Friends have told me they’ve been catching the tube for years and that has never happened to them and it’s happened to me twice in a week. I think it must be something to do with my body language. In both cases I was about to start talking to them, so there must have been something open about the way I was positioning myself or maybe they just caught me glancing at them. It’ll be interesting to see if this continues to happen anyway.

The most striking conversation I had was with a huge Bosnian man on his way to Ikea who owned his own construction company. He didn’t look like the friendliest of people, but as soon as I got him going it was like opening a floodgate. Some people really have something to say, something they seem like they’re dying to tell someone. I wonder if they go on about it to their friends as well. After giving me the (negative) inside track on the building trade – running out of money on jobs, people not paying up – he moved on to talking about how London had changed. He said that things used to be more fun but now people were more money motivated and the joy had been sucked out of the city. He spoke very strongly about it, and I wonder how much it reflected his own life.

He got a phone call and talked in Bosnian (I got the impression it was a work call) for the last few stops and I didn’t know how we were going to get his permission until one of the producers got in front of him on the platform. He said he’d call whoever it was back. He didn’t seem bothered about the secret mic bit, and when he found out it was for the BBC, he really got going; on gambling (preying on the vulnerable) and the state of London. He was really impassioned about it, talking for a good 10 minutes before the producer stopped him, saying we had to go. The most striking bit I remember was a story he related about seeing an old fox that didn’t seem scared of people or traffic anymore. “That’s how people are today. They don’t care if they live or they die.” Probably the most negative and angry person I’ve talked to but at the same time friendly, glad to have someone to get it off his chest to.

Before we headed back into town I asked the producers how they thought it was going. “Great, way better than we expected.” They were really surprised that people responded so positively when approached on the tube, as are most people. It’s true, I’ve also been impressed by how happy people are to talk. Those who aren’t I think are partly suspicious that I’m trying to sell them something or are just more caught up in social convention and most open up more if the conversation runs for a while. I would really urge people to do this more on their commutes; it’s been a really positive experience on the whole. (I’d also love to hear stories of other people doing it!)

Heading back into to town I spoke to a quiet social worker from Nigeria who, after being very hesitant and suspicious at first, was opening up a bit (her attitude reminded me of the girl from Ghana I spoke to a while ago) when one of the producers intervened and gave the spiel about being from the BBC. Unfortunately she’d been too quiet to pick up on the mic. We weren’t quite at the station yet though so there was a minute of really awkward silence where we all sat not knowing what to say now. I couldn’t really bear it so tried to carry on chatting but it was very weird and we mercifully reached the station and changed carriages after about a minute.

After speaking to a lovely Colombian woman on her way to do her Christmas shopping in Hammersmith who I owned up to about the mic when some rowdy kids got on, drowning her out (she didn’t mind and we waved to each other through the window when she got off), the producers interviewed me. This involved a lot of faffing with expensive looking equipment and drew stares from across the aisle with people wondering who I was and why I was being interviewed. At one point they asked me to describe people’s body language, including a guy who was staring straight at me, which was excruciatingly awkward. I really hope they don’t use it!

It was only at the end that they told me that there wasn’t going to be any narration on the programme, at which point I realised that I hadn’t mentioned anything about writing a blog the entire way through the recording. So much for self-promotion. It seems I may well come across as a well-meaning crazy person, travelling the tube, talking to people for my own amusement. I suppose that’s what I’m doing anyway though really, isn’t it? The programme goes out on the World Service in January so I’ll post the link to it then.