I opened the app on my phone. Selecting the station – Monument; and direction – St. James via the Coast, it read two minutes. Below that, it indicated the following train to be a further nineteen minutes away.

I glanced across the large crowded square that housed Earl Grey’s statue and estimated my journey to be exactly two minutes. I considered spending any time at all on a Metro platform a kind of purgatory, so immediately set off at a brisk pace.

My first obstacle was an amorous couple for whom the square seemed to be their bedroom. Side stepping them, I hissed under my breath.

“Get a room!”

One minute forty five.

I almost collided with a brace of Chinese girls coming towards me, both buried knee-deep in their mobile phones. Another dip of the shoulder saw me swerve the oblivious pair, liked Peter Beardsley in his prime.

One minute thirty.

I descended the stairs two at a time, ignoring the tattooed chav withe three kids and a buggy. No time for chivalry. Almost going my length at the bottom – was it Karma?.

One minute fifteen.

The lower concourse was packed with people seemingly going nowhere. I noticed the red crosses on the gate barriers and my heart sank. Following a spell of human slaloming, I located the green ticks at the far side of the barrier.

One minute.

Just as the announcement informed travellers to stand on the left hand side of the escalator, two old women, joined at the hip, stepped onto the moving staircase.

Forty five seconds.

“Excuse me,” I said politely, receiving a look from the offending biddy on the left as if I’d told her to go forth and multiply.

Thirty seconds.

The rush of cold air in my face heralded the arrival of my train, with half an escalator and two more errant, or deaf pensioners to negotiate. It chilled the sweat dripping from my armpits as I squeezed past her.

Fifteen seconds.

I leapt from the moving staircase into the incoming crowd, already contemplating my fate of a nineteen minute stretch standing in subterranean Newcastle.

Zero.

The high pitched beeping of the train sounded as I squeezed myself between the closing doors like a sideways limbo dancer. I’d made it – at the expense of my sanity. I cursed my obsession with time and the accuracy of the Pop app.

Slumping onto the single seat reserved for “priority” travellers, I began my recovery from the two minutes of Hell I’d subjected myself to. Breathless, sweaty and with my heart pounding in my ears, I looked around the carriage.

The usual bunch of characters populated the car. I immediately checked out the presence of any “priority” punters. None so far. I then had an internal debate about being sixty-six and the necessity to give up my seat anyway. Ninety five percent of my fellow travellers were younger than me.

The exception was an old gentleman opposite. He was studying the crossword in the Metro Newspaper, I could see the Sudoku visible on the fold of the paper.

Damn! I’d forgotten to pick one up in my rush.

Completing the puzzle on the journey home was the highlight of the trip for myself and my friend Chrissy. Wed try and finish it, noting the station where the last word was written. Our record was Palmersville.

In the absence of my own paper, I studied the man. He was, I estimated, around eighty, although it’s hard to guess the age of folks these days. my track record wasn’t good.

My subject was betrayed by his attire, nevertheless. A complete throwback to the fifties. From his plain green flat cap, which was of superior quality, to his immaculately polished shoes which reflected the lights of the carriage. Perhaps twenty years post-retirement, this man still made the daily effort to look smart. Beneath his beige Mackintosh, a brown wool suit peeped through. His shirt, pristine in its country-style checks, was gracefully adorned with a red silk tie. This was flawlessly knotted beneath his flapping turkey neck, the only physical indication of his age.

He wore large rectangular gold rimmed glasses, highly fashionable – five decades ago. They were perched a millimetre or two from the bridge of his nose, as he studied the puzzle. What held my attention, however, was his mouth. Large, almost stretching from ear to ear, it seemed to have a life of its own. It twisted and contorted like an escaped cobra across his face. His tongue popped out from time to time as he searched in his ancient brain for the elusive three letter word meaning feline.

I imagined him riding on the third rail predecessor to the Metro, which travelled the old “Coast Loop” in the middle of the last century. He had probably been a civil servant or an accountant.

The pen, held between his right hand’s thumb and index finger, was a brushed steel Parker ballpoint. He hadn’t written a single letter, some three stops into our journey. Our record of Palmersville was safe, I thought. His lips danced the tango beneath his red, pock-marked nose but still no letters appeared. I was itching to grab the paper from him and set about the poser.

As we approached Four Lane Ends, he glanced out of the window. His expression changed to that of fear as he folded the paper complete with its empty crossword. He tucked it and pen into his neat brown leather briefcase and eased his ancient frame to its feet.

The look of trepidation intensified on his wrinkled features as he made for the doors. I turned to watch him on the platform and my heart went out to him. He seemed to be in another world, an old world as the crowds overtook him like a stream over a stone. As the train pulled out of the station, I caught a last glimpse of him, alone, slowly stepping onto the escalator.

I thought again about my two minute rush for the train. Time, a strange phenomenon indeed.