"I enjoy meeting and greeting people and helping them, whether it’s to get to the right carriage or helping with their luggage or just to have a nice journey"
For retired mechanical engineer Richard Armitage, his duties as a Grand Central ambassador sit alongside a range of community work, including volunteering at Cromwell Bottom nature reserve and being part of the Friends of Brighouse Station group.
Richard applied to become an ambassador around five years ago, he says, “because I enjoy meeting and greeting people and helping them, whether it’s to get to the right carriage or helping with their luggage or just to have a nice journey.”
Unsurprisingly, no two days are the same for Richard and his fellow ambassadors. “Sometimes it can be very quiet and sometimes it can be very busy,” he says, “The majority of the time it’s very busy, especially at lunchtime, with people asking whether they’ve got the right ticket or the right platform. Sometimes they want to know more about what Grand Central’s all about, too” Now the station has a ticket machine, says Richard, “some of the elderly passengers are a bit confused so it’s good to be able to help them.”