Some years ago, I was at the station waiting to catch the train back home from the town where I was at university. I was a little early, so I went to the cafe and had a coffee.

A man came in to the cafe. There was nothing obviously worrying about him: he wasn’t being aggressive or anything, and he hadn’t even looked at me, but something told me that I needed to get away from him ( I guessed that he was probably going to catch the same train as me ). The feeling was so strong that I felt I had no choice but to cross the bridge to the other platform and take another train home, one which left fifteen minutes later than the other train, and which would also be taking a longer route. This would mean I would arrive home nearly an hour later than if I caught the same train as this man, but I felt I had no choice.

I duly caught the later train. Mid-journey, it came to a halt and didn’t move for nearly an hour. The guard apologised and kept saying he’s update us when possible. Finally, he explained that we had needed to stop because police had closed the line: on the train just ahead of us ( the train I should have caught ), a man had wielded a gun and threatened passengers.

Thankfully, no one got hurt in the end, but he had tried to take a woman hostage. The next day, it was in the paper, and there was a photo of the gun man- the man I had seen in the cafe.