Here is a copy of a letter I hand delivered to Marcus, the station manager at BPW on 5th Sept.

The reference no. is that of the complaint I lodged with GWR via the phone.

Station Manager, Bristol Parkway, Great Western Railways

Ref: GWR-CR-2516390

Dear Station Manager.

First I must imagine there is more than one manager and so this letter may have to be shown to each.

Although I have yet to confirm the exact time and date I am making you aware of an incident between two of your platform staff at 8:30am on 7th August last.

I was about catch the 8:30 X-Country to Plymouth, arriving around 10:45, though it was 16min late in Plymouth. This was on platform 2.

I generally pace the platform rather than sitting and so was over 100m away from the first class carriage at the front, where I was heading and I witnessed a rather terse attack on one of your staff by another staff member. I could not hear the conversation well until I closed in on my to the front carriage. All I heard was “your problem is you are too uptight” as the publicly offence person went to the stairs. I had no time to see if your other colleague was OK but they didn’t look too happy.

My concern is that this ‘reprimand’ done publicly is not just unpleasant to witness but brings to mind that if that can happen on the public platform what may that person do in more private places.


I can identify the person on the receiving end of the abuse but will refrain from naming them as it could make matters worse for them given the abuser had no concern what the public thought and may well have used the public to make the comments more emotionally intense.


I am therefore asking of you the following, if you will.

Please gather staff, especially those that were on duty on 7th August and let them know of this concern. No one needs to be named but ask if the person who was abusive, although they may not consider their actions such, would come to the management later and privately to explain their actions.

I do not consider it prudent to mention the platform or date at this time as that may influence the person involved to put pressure on the victim of the verbal abuse.

Should this fail to bring forward the culprit I could help you identify them as I do know who was on the receiving end of the verbal rant.

Thank you

Roger Lovejoy

P.S. It could be possible that the abuse was from a member of the public as I didn’t clearly see if them so I will ask the member of staff about that day if and when I see them.