Amazingstoke!
I had the misfortune to go to school in Basingstoke - In the early 90s they kicked all the patients out of the local mental hospital as part of the really-well-thought-through 'care in the community' scheme, so the bus station was always full of shouting crazies. One woman used to spend her days wandering up and down shouting at an imaginary child by her side, which was pretty tragic.

Although my favourite bus station mental was a bit more coherent. I was reading a book called 'Nightmare of Ecstasy' (about the wonderfully awful movie director Ed Wood,) and a slightly odd skinhead bloke sat down beside me. He read the title, got entirely the wrong idea, then started chatting away about the many and varied drugs he'd tried. After a few minutes of this, he said he'd been reading a book himself recently, it was really very good, since I like books I should give it a try. What was it called? 'Mein Kampf.' Right, ok.

On a side note, my abiding memory of the station is waiting for the bus to take me home from school, watching a crippled pigeon listlessly pecking at a puddle of dried sick. Sums up the town perfectly.

Truly a wonderful place.
( Zoroastermouse thinks therefore he am, Fri 28 Sep 2012, 18:58, Reply)