‘I know of only one place where one can be publicly sociable in the small hours, and that is the all-night buffet on platform 14′
– Pamela Ward, in the Esher report, writing about York in 1968, when York station was clearly a happening kind of place …
That’s made me remember a time I was going home from a party, at about 2 am. I cycled from Bootham, across the city, out through Walmgate Bar to Hull Road, and didn’t pass anybody else at all. No cars, no pedestrians. All tucked up safely in bed.
This would have been in 1978.
Maybe if you’d known about platform 14 you could have extended your revelries Andy!
I remember in the 80s it was similarly quiet after pub closing time around 11pm, and only rarely did a night out extend beyond then, maybe on the rare occasions we could afford to go to a club.