I was once cast away to Didcot to attend a 2-day software training session. The town offers 2 distinct features which strike you almost as soon as you step off the platform.
The first is the huge imposing power station at one end of the town. It looms over everything, eerily rising from the flat landscape just like the one in 'The Simpsons'.
The other feature is the (unique?) demography. Didcot is half-composed of very old people, and half of fairly-young to middle-adged men who work in the town's various software / IT firms. Presumably this is because the old people have clustered together having been relegated from towns where they may be more useful, and the youngish middle adged men still live with their mums.
This burdens the new visitor with a choice of which poses the greater risk - walking on the pavements or the middle of the road? Traffic on the pavements is usually faster-flowing and more erratic due to all those electric wheely things whizzing past, their drivers dispossessed by age of the reaction speeds or cognitive fortitude needed to stop or maneuvre, let alone indicate. Alternatively the road option pits you against big dangerous cars, more than likely adorned with such bumper stickers as Kirk is still the best and Baby on board (in Klingon).
Another interesting product of this haunting demographic - that there are only old people or people with no girlfriends - is the lack of children one might see playing in the streets. That's good for me because I don't really like children, but obviously bad for the paedos.
The town itself boasts mostly chain restaurants and bars that small town folk (mistakenly) think are good, although it must be said I noticed a few nice pubs which, despite the expected focus on lager (it is the South after all), offered some nice local ales.
Although I wouldn't actually recommend getting off the train in Didcot, if one does decide to they can take comfort in the fact that the station itself is at least bracingly normal. read more