FIRST-time travellers up north will be helped to prepare themselves before leaving the railway station.
Stations in Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester will offer passengers travelling from London one-to-one therapy in marquees situated immediately before the exit.
A spokesman for Manchester Piccadilly said: “Most people born and bred down south don’t travel up north more than maybe once or twice in their lives and probably require a very special or comprehensively unavoidable reason to do so.
“Consequently, when they arrive here and see the blotchy faces, are exposed to the rasping accents, overwhelmed by the aroma of old-style Wimpy bars and confused by fish and chip shops offering ‘pea wet’, some of them have been known to faint and injure themselves.
“We offer a complimentary service, including short videos and pamphlets, which will help travellers to avoid that feeling that they’ve been plunged via a wormhole into a late 1970s Mark E Smith lyric.”
A spokesman for Glasgow’s Central Station said: “We could give you six weeks of videos, simulations, brochures, whatever, to ease the trauma.
“Truth is, you won’t know till you experience it in the raw. Glasgow is Glasgow.”
