The Woman in Train occupied the window seat next to Hilda Ogden on a journey to Manchester in June 1974. The middle-aged woman was returning from her sister's in New Brighton and was only half-listening as Hilda wittered on about her working holiday aboard the cruise liner Monte Umber in the Caribbean. Hilda eventually managed to draw her into a conversation, but it was the fact that Hilda had been abroad without her husband that sparked the lady's interest rather than the exotic destination. Hilda responded to the woman's remark by saying that she and Stan were "very emasculated".