Dangerous Knitting

My sister and brother-in-law have complained that in describing knitting the Patricia Roberts jumper,  I did not mention another incident that happened when I was knitting while commuting.  So here goes.

With a 70-minute train journey to work, morning and evening, I did a lot of knitting and a lot of reading. If the knitting is not too complicated, I can easily read a novel at the same time, and I used to go to the library frequently and borrow nice well-used hardbacks that would stay open of their own accord while my hands were occupied with knitting, and so the 70 minutes would pass very easily.  One day, I was on the train, busy with my knitting and reading, knitting and reading, when another passenger tapped me on the shoulder and said very slowly and clearly, as if to one probably deaf and certainly daft: "We have to get off the train now - it's on fire".   I looked up and sure enough, there were flames sweeping spectacularly past the window.  The train had stopped and most of the other passengers had already got off and were standing beside the track.  The train  was (I think) a diesel multiple unit, with a diesel engine underneath each carriage, and it was the one underneath the carriage I was in that had caught fire.

The aftermath was not very dramatic - the fire didn't spread, and another train came along shortly to take us on our way.  But I was deeply embarassed.  There must have been a considerable commotion in the carriage - people noticing the flames, pointing them out to each other, calling the guard, the train stopping, an announcement about evacuating the train, people getting off, and I had not noticed any of it.

Must have been a good book.