James Fearon was a celebrated interviewer and political commentator. He was, unlike many of his peers, a suave, polished and polite man whose Friday evening videocast had an audience of tens of millions all over the globe. His style was unique, and though never confrontational nor combative it was brutal. Politicians who were invited to be interviewed, and all considered it to be a golden opportunity, knew they had to play by the rules. They could chose the topics they wished to discuss and had to submit an outline of those topics. They had to stick to those topics and not attempt to turn the interview into a party political broadcast. Should they do so James simply cut them off after one warning. The means to do so was at his side. If they continued to do so, he would terminate the interview and have a preprepared interview of a less contentious nature broadcast in its place. He was equally brutal if they wouldn’t answer the questions they were asked.

There was no room for spin, lies nor manipulation on his program. His viewers wanted unvarnished reality and would respect someone who admitted, “It was a difficult place for us, and we had little information to proceed on. I had to make a decision based on little more than gut feelings, and I got it wrong. It’s my responsibility and I’m sorry, but the electorate would have been even sorrier had I made no decision.” James’ viewers expected him to crucify mere politicians by cutting them off and consigning them to public opprobrium and regarded all he was prepared to give a platform and a full hearing to as statesmen and women worthy of their respect. It was widely held that he had done more in thirty years to clean up politics than all the investigations, court judgements and quangos into political responsibility put together.

Current affairs and politics were what his employers wanted from him especially in the run up to an election, but they left it up to him how to go about it and he employed a variety of formats and strategies to keep his broadcasts fresh. Numerous polls clearly indicated that was what his huge audience enjoyed and expected, but they also enjoyed what he had always openly admitted was his real love, interviewing high level scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians, inventors and innovators of all kinds. He was a graduate polymer physicist who had gone into journalism in his mid thirties nearly thirty years ago, and he never tried to put words into the mouths of his guests. He was the perfect interviewer from their point of view because he always ensured that not only did his guests manage to say what they wished to say, but his audience understood what they were saying.

For politicians his phenomenal memory of decades of international, national and local politics ensured they never managed to distort events and his research team guided by his briefings and standing guidelines was the best in the business. He read their findings and had committed them to memory before every broadcast. He always did his homework. That he was gay had been known since he was ten or eleven and he was a bitter opponent of all and any forms of bigotry and wouldn’t give any one who subscribed to such views any air time at all. It was well known that he had refused to interview one particular prime minister even just before an election because she was an unapologetic man hater. What amused his viewers was her rabid protestations that he was a gay misogynistic bastard who had cost her the election, because he’d done in depth interviews with the leaders of all the other political parties prior to the election. She ignored the fact that two of them were women. What incensed her even more was that he’d had a further interview with the woman who governed the country in her stead the following week.

Professor Claire McBride was a startlingly beautiful woman. Her face was arresting because the combination of deep blue eyes that shone seemed to be at odds with her vibrantly natural copper red hair. She looked to be in her late thirties, but was fifty-one. She was married to a farrier and they’d been together since their late teens. She had a large extended family including four adopted children and their offspring and was known to be a major supporter of a number of children’s charities. Over the years she’d taken a deal of abuse because she was an openly declared atheist, but as far as any were aware she was like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion. This was her third appearance with James, and if not friends it was obvious from the way James introduced her they certainly liked each other.

“On your last appearance, Professor McBride, we discussed the hypersonic Ring Train that you invented and developed such that Derby Rail could actually built the system. And the time before that it was the development of the focussed force field precision machine tools and the concomitant energy generation system that made fossil fuels and nuclear options things of the past. And I have to say I was pleased when it put an end to covering the landscape with windmills. However, I’m sure the viewers would be as interested as I to hear where the inspiration for your amazing ideas came from, Claire. I was recently told by a colleague of yours that they originated in your early childhood. Could you tell us? Or is that some deep dark secret?”

Professor McBride chuckled and it was deep throaty contralto sound. “No, not at all. It may sound unbelievable though. As a child I was interested in science fiction. I still have an extensive collection of classic paperbacks. I especially enjoyed reading Robert Heinlein’s teenage novels which I initially got into when I borrowed one from one of my brothers on a rainy Saturday afternoon when I had nothing else to do. The first one I read was Starman Jones and I have an original first edition copy. I suppose having three brothers and no sisters influenced me greatly, especially when the nation was in the grip of the Covid 19 pandemic lock down. I’m the youngest, and I only had my brothers to play with during lock down, and they were all model railway enthusiasts. They were into racing trains that went endlessly round a tail chaser, theirs was a simple pair of tracks that followed a vaguely circular circuit, but that wasn’t enough for me, so I turned to the internet, I’d have been nine then. I watched endless youtube videos posted by Luke Towan, Marklin of Sweden and many others for inspiration and started to make scenery. I downloaded a panoramic backdrop which I glued onto a back board made from cardboard boxes using wallpaper paste, and my brothers started to allow me to make changes.

My brothers’ layout was on a single eight foot by four foot sheet of plywood, and other than two simple bridges to equalise the length of the two tracks it was originally strictly two dimensional, but I suppose that’s where the dream started. I built hills, tunnels, a viaduct running over a small lake and had the trains going up and down hill. I was maybe ten when I decided that eventually I wanted a huge layout like some of the ones I’d seen on the internet.

The idea of modelling trains, cars, boats, cyclists and planes that actually worked was fascinating. Radio control, Faller cars, Magnorail, Scalextric, digital control that could run them all, make sound and lights work, synchronise traffic lights, signals and much more was what my love of things scientific was born out of. It all came together eventually when I realised I wanted to build a real train layout. I wanted not necessarily the biggest layout in the world, but I definitely wanted the best. All the machine tools, and the energy generation were developed on the way to developing the Ring Train.”

“Where did the idea for the Ring Train come from?”

“Starman Jones by Heinlein. It’s all there to read in the first chapter. All I had to do was make it work. A train that flies through the air going through ring after ring at Mach ten. It’s pushed by pressor fields from the last ring, drops every so slightly due to gravity on a catenary curve to be pulled back up the curve again by the tractor fields of the upcoming ring. My layout is still my major hobby and it’s an ideal test bed for my ideas. It’s still the only one in the world that features a working Ring Train.”

“Fascinating, but I must say it all seems very strange for a little girl, even given the Covid lock down circumstances.”

“Oh dear! I’ve caught you out on two counts, James. One, you’re stereotyping, lots of little girls enjoy modelling including all six of my granddaughters, and two you didn’t do enough homework because I wasn’t a little girl back then.”