Conductor appeared totally unfazed by fact friend Sarah couldn't find her ticket anywhere and a lot more interested in what was in her shopping bags.

Not that anything suspicious or untoward was contained in her shopping bags - just girlie shopping which the conductor, being from the camp school of conductors, was anxious to discuss.

"So, have you been on a day trip to get your autumn collection?" he asked, excitedly, when Sarah began rummaging through the six or so bags, any one of which could have contained her ticket.

"Er. . . no," said Sarah, now a little embarrassed by the extent of her purchases, which obviously did look like an entire autumn collection, rather than the one or two things she'd intended to get now that there was a slight chill in the air. "Just out in my lunch hour."

"Oh, you must be a very efficient shopper to get all this done in your lunch hour," said conductor, sitting down on the vacant seat opposite us. "I can never make up my mind straight away and it usually takes me about two days to decide on a pair of shoes."

"It must be here somewhere," said Sarah, referring to the forgotten ticket and moving on to another bag, through which she was about to rummage.

"Ohhhh, Dolce and Gabbana!" exclaimed conductor. "I love that shop. Do show!"

So Sarah brought out a pair of shoes which were almost identical to the ones she was already wearing and the other ten or so pairs of almost identical pairs or shoes lined up in her bedroom at home.

When I pointed this out to her, Sarah said that she liked the style of that particular pair of shoes and when you liked a particular style it was almost impossible to find them, so having seen them in Dolce and Gabbana it seemed like a good idea to snap them up.

"Ohh, I couldn't agree more," said conductor. "You can never be too rich or have too many pairs of shoes - to misquote a famous quotation. Oh and you've been to Whistles. What did you buy there?"

Sarah produced a pair of olive green leather trousers and as she held them up for inspection, out fell the thing which should have been being inspected - her ticket. "Ah, here we are," she said, holding up the ticket. But instead of taking it, the conductor took the trousers and began admiring them.

"Wonderful! Lovely soft leather and a nice dark colour. I don't like that light yellowy olive much but this is gorgeous. I wouldn't mind a pair myself." He reluctantly handed them back to Sarah, who again tried to give him her ticket and was this time successful.

"Fine," he said, giving it a cursory glance and for a moment he looked as if he was about to continue his journey of ticket inspection but then he paused and added. "Did you get anything else nice while you were out?"

So that was it. For almost the remainder of the journey, Sarah pulled things out of bags and removed their tissue wrapping, while the conductor held them up to the light or asked her to hold them up to herself so he could see the colour on her, until there was really nothing left to show.

"A very productive lunch hour, if I might say?" he did say and reluctantly went on his ticket-pleasing way.

By the time the train reached Preston Park, he'd almost made up for lost time and checked the tickets of the entire carriage.

But as he neared the door we saw him glance at the overhead luggage rack and say: "Ohhhh! Someone's been shopping at Prada . . . "