A book club on the morning ferry: commuters read together on the Saltings route

The 7.20 from the Saltings is not a quiet boat. Engines thrum, gulls follow the wake, and the tannoy announces the arrival at Old Quay twice. Yet in a sheltered corner of the upper deck, a group of commuters manage to hold a reasonably serious conversation about literature, five mornings a week, before scattering to offices, classrooms and building sites.

The club has 28 members on its message group, of whom a dozen or so turn up on a typical morning. They read one book a month, divided into four weekly sections, and each morning someone volunteers a passage or a question. There are no minutes, no membership fee and no rule that anyone has to finish.

Martha Linnane, a primary school teacher who started the group, said it began almost by accident. "I noticed three people on the same crossing reading the same paperback," she said. "I asked what they thought of the ending. By the time we docked we had agreed to read the next one together."

Reading against the tide

The choices range widely. Recent months have included a sea novel from the nineteenth century, a memoir by a mountain guide, a crime story set in a port city and a short collection of poems that took the group six weeks to get through because, members said, it kept starting arguments. Bay Ferries crew have taken to leaving the corner table free for them.

It is the only meeting in my week that nobody has scheduled and nobody wants to leave early.

Gideon Ashby, a civil engineer who joined in the first winter, said the crossing set its own discipline. "You have exactly 35 minutes, and then the ramp comes down," he said. "No one waffles when the boat is about to dock."

Bay Ferries, which runs the route, has noticed. The operator now stocks a small shelf of donated paperbacks in the saloon for passengers to borrow, and staff say the books go out faster than the coffee on wet mornings, when the upper deck is too exposed to sit outside.

Newcomers are welcome. The group's current book is posted on the noticeboard in the Saltings ferry shelter, and spare copies are passed around the boat for anyone who wants to try a chapter before committing to the whole thing.