The Artless Commuter

Meet The Artless Commuter (1965) by Joanna Jones, a book that sounds like it should come with a free umbrella, a mild cough, and a season ticket that has seen things.

This is a glorious little artefact from the golden age of British getting-to-work: when commuting meant battling timetables printed in tiny type, enduring platforms that smelled faintly of tea and damp wool, and developing a private, lifelong feud with “service alterations.” The title promises a kind of gentle incompetence, too. Not the sleek, purposeful commuter of modern productivity myths, but the artless one: slightly lost, slightly late, clutching a newspaper, and somehow always on the wrong end of the carriage when the doors open.

Joanna Jones writes for the everyday traveller, the person who has mastered the art of standing still while being jostled, who can fall asleep upright, and who can identify a fellow sufferer by the thousand-yard stare and the way they hold a cup of station coffee like it’s both comfort and threat. Expect observations, humour, and that very 1960s tone of practical cheerfulness, as if the correct response to being packed into a train like a polite sardine is simply to make a note of it and carry on.

But here’s the best part: this copy lived on the library of HMS Ark Royal. Not metaphorically. Literally. This little book about daily rail misery and routine trudging was shelved on a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, surrounded by the faint aroma of jet fuel, steel corridors, and men who absolutely were not commuting, thank you very much. It was also borrowed four times in 1966, which raises several excellent questions.

Who, exactly, was the “artless commuter” on Ark Royal? A sailor dreaming of British Rail and the soothing disappointment of a delayed train? A homesick reader craving the comforting mundanity of platforms, ticket queues, and the gentle tyranny of the 08:12? Or perhaps it was read as science fiction: a strange civilian world where the biggest danger was missing your connection at Clapham Junction rather than whatever was happening on the flight deck.

Those four checkouts are the real provenance. This book wasn’t just owned, it was used. It did its duty. It went to sea, it got read, it returned to the shelf, and it got called back into service again. If books could wear medals, this one would have at least a modest ribbon for morale support.

Condition-wise, it’s Good, which in Crappy Old Books terms means it has lived a respectable life and shows it with quiet pride. You’re buying not only a wry slice of 1965 commuter culture, but a bit of floating-library history. It’s the kind of copy that makes you handle it with slightly more reverence than usual, even while you’re chuckling at the idea of an aircraft carrier crew earnestly consulting a guide to everyday travel woes.

Perfect for collectors of transport ephemera, lovers of mid-century humour, naval-history oddities, and anyone who suspects the British commute is its own kind of campaign.

As sold by Crappy Old Books, where even the most artless commuter might occasionally find themselves reading at sea.

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