A long time ago, in another life, both my partner and I lived in a London suburb and caught the Underground to two different workplaces. One time she was going to renew her season ticket and I asked her to do mine at the same time.

Sometime the following week I was stopped by a travelling inspector who said I had a woman's ticket. I remembered what had happened and explained. He then told me that to avoid fraud, season tickets issued to women had a thin diagonal line running across the front. We had never noticed the difference before.

Next time, I renewed my ticket myself and had more questions at the ticket office. Fortunately, all was well, although I really wished that I had been eligible for a woman's ticket back then.

Penny