Confessions of a Barista on Platform 1 is a great read - light pacy and very funny

Confessions of a Barista on Platform 1 by Joanna Murray Published by Firle Press Price £8.99 The Confessions of a Barista on Platform 1 represents a journey of self discovery for author, Joanna Murray, via running a coffee shop on St Leonards station, East Sussex. The reader is introduced to a whole variety of characters, from Stig the station manager to Harriet Harpie, whose rudeness finally gets her banned from the coffee shop. This memorably leads to an outburst on the station outside, when she declares: "that bitch wouldn't serve me because I wouldn't say please." The Pirate, the Ice Queen, Dot Cotton and Station Man are among other great characters featured from the coffee bar. There are amusing recurrent themes, such as the people asking for the toilet but being told that there isn't one on the station or in the coffee shop, not that this stops them repeatedly asking the same question. The coffee shop experience is though also a journey of discovery, so daily life is punctuated with looks back at the author's life, her various relationships and a refusal to commit amid something of a rolling stone existence. That is until the stone comes to a halt at the coffee shop in St Leonards. The book is nicely structured, with short sharp witty chapters on each character or episode. Each chapter is punctuated by the station announcer's relay of the stations on the lines, along the coast and up and down to Charing Cross, which provides an interesting rhythmn. There is also a bit of amusing dialogue, around coffee orders, to end most sections, together with a couple of lines of history on each of the places where the train stops. All in all this was a really enjoyable read, opening up so many lives of people, who at first glance in the commuting context could seem one dimensional.But it also touches on so many aspects of everyones life journey, told through the perceptive eyes of the coffee shop owner. One hanging question ofcourse, in these Covid coloured times, is how the coffee shop has been fairing over the past year, or maybe that is why Joanna Murray had the time to write the book in the first place.