Many years ago I auditioned for a place with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company. I was summoned to the Aldwych Theatre in London to present two pieces for the Director, Peter Hall. On the day of the audition train drivers from the Southern Region decided on industrial action resulting in a large number of cancellations. Knowing that Mr Hall - as he was then - would have an abundance of talent to choose from, my absence would be of little significance. I was determined to get there some how. The timing was difficult, but I managed to work out a travel plan that should get me there just in time for my call at 11.15 am.

I set off in my very elderly and unreliable Lee Francis motor car - yes, they don't make them any more - and coaxed it through the heavy traffic - swollen more than usual by the train strike - until I got to Bromley. I left my car at Bromley Station and waiting patiently for the 10.15 to Cannon Street which I had been told was running on time. It was not. I paced the platform nervously as it slowly filled up with irritable commuters. When it did arrive at 10.45 there was a furious rush to get into the already over crowed compartments. With one arm grasping the luggage rack and my face buried into the overcoat of a large businessman, I mumbled my way through my audition pieces indifferent to the curious looks from the strangers standing on my feet.

With rapidly fading resolution, I fell out of the train at Cannon Street and raced outside to find a taxi. The queue - or rather the rabble - was totally out of control, so I ran into Upper Thames Street waving frantically at a taxi just about to cross Southwark Bridge. Miraculously, he stopped. I wrenched open the door as he started to say something about another fare across the street, but I bellowed, "The Aldwych Theatre!" with such authority that he shrugged and set off for the Embankment. "I can't go any faster, mate", he snarled when I urged him on, "With the trains on strike and the tube on a go slow everyone's on the road." So I shut up and resigned myself to staring at my watch as 11.15 came and went.

At 11.45 am I stepped into the Aldwych and asked the girl in the box office where the auditions were taking place. "On the stage", she said, without even looking up. I ran out of the building to the backstage entrance and careered down the steep staircase to the backstage just as a weary voice called out "Dyer! Ray Dyer here?" I stepped into the light and croaked "Yes, sorry about the …" "Fine. First piece please. When you're ready." It was the best I could do. I could feel the sweat running down my spine and the catch in my throat that I couldn't cough away, but I did them both - Mark Antony's address to the dead Caesar and the Porter's speech from Macbeth.

I waited as the rustling of paper and the mumbling from the deep darkness of the auditorium subsided and then called "Is that all?" And the answer came, "Yes, thank you very much. We'll let you know."

Ray Dyer