Train drivers are the luckiest people in the world," said Tom.

"They're the only people who actually are what they always wanted to be when they were children. But they still can't be bothered to get themselves out of bed and go to work in the mornings."

We were standing on a freezing, snow dusted platform, listening to announcements that most of the trains we might have entertained notions of catching, were cancelled due to driver shortages. "I suppose the reality doesn't live up to the expectation," continued Tom. "They all thought they'd be roaming around open countryside on Thomas the Tank Engine and stopping for sandwiches whenever they fancied, instead of worrying about speed restrictions and punctuality."

We decided to go and have breakfast, while waiting for a driver to materialise.

"So, did you always want to be a train driver then?" I asked Tom, through a mouthful of cheese and bacon puff.

"No, I wanted to work at a sewage treatment plant," said Tom. "Because that is what my Dad did," he added, obviously not wanting me to think that he retained a childish fascination with what comes out, to the extent that he thought he must work with it.

"I suppose you wanted to be a nurse?" he continued.

"A ballerina," I corrected. "At least until I was about seven, then I wanted to be a palaeontologist - I don't think I had the terminology for it but I wanted to do something with dinosaur bones - then I wanted to make pastry a lot, so I suppose I wanted to be a pastry chef. When I was about ten I wanted to write poetry.

At 13 I wanted to be Debbie Harry, 17 an apple farmer, 19 a furniture removal company administrator and after than anything that involved travel."

"So you've yet to achieve a single childhood ambition," said Tom.

"Well, you are not exactly a sewage treatment plant worker," I pointed out.

Tom is a software development project co-ordinator - whatever that might me.

At this point, a train was announced - only a short little train mind. As "Due to driver shortages it will only have half the usual number of carriages."

"So how did they work that one out?" wondered Tom. "I mean even someone who never harboured ambitions to be a train driver himself knows you don't need a driver per carriage. . ."

We boarded the train and sat down next to and opposite a casually dressed man in his early forties and continued the above conversation. At some point after Tom had finished laughing at the idea of me aged four, prancing around the sitting room dressed in a pink tutu the man opposite joined in.

"I think you'd have looked lovely in a tutu," he said, adding wistfully, "I always wanted to be a bee keeper."

"Was your father a bee keeper?" asked Tom, thinking of no other reason why anyone would wish to pursue a career with small stingy things.

"No," said the would-be apiculturist. "He was a dustman. I filled in one of those forms with your likes and dislikes and I liked insects. So they told me I should either work for Rentokil or be a bee keeper. But I had an allergic reaction to a bee sting and I couldn't fact the prospect of killing tiny creatures so I couldn't do either."

"So what did you do?" I said, in the most sympathetic tone I could muster, as here was a man truly driven by a passion to keep bees and cruelly robbed of the opportunity (and here was a man who'd said I would have looked lovely in a tutu - more to the point)

"I'm a train driver," he said miserably.