I feel I should share our experience with First Great Western Trains' customer services. My wife, daughter and myself recently spent four days in Euro Disney Paris and two nights in London.

We agreed to use rail as our mode of transport from Malvern to London and then via Eurostar to Paris with a change at Lille, France. Our return would be the same in reverse.

All went to plan with a very good service from Eurostar and the French network demonstrating an efficient service. We were also impressed with the underground network in London and made good use of this. It was on our return from London Paddington where things started to go wrong.

Every train leaving Paddington on June 3 between midday and the time we eventually left at 16.30 was delayed.

The information board displayed a delay on the Paddington to Great Malvern 13.48 train. At 14.20 it was announced that due to technical reasons, this train was cancelled. The information desk informed me they were waiting for a driver.

Another information desk informed me we would have to wait for the 15.48 train, but this was delayed and eventually we boarded at 16.20.

When we got to Evesham, it was announced that due to the delays, the service would terminate at Worcester Foregate St.

In fact, the service terminated at Shrub Hill and we were told to leave the train for a connection on the opposite platform where a train was waiting.

Now, bear in mind we had heavy baggage, one tired eight-year-old, a three hour wait in a hot busy London station and being told we were being kicked off our train and needed to cross a bridge to another platform.

While struggling across the bridge, we were met by a station porter whose shoulders slumped when he saw us and asked "where are you going?"

When we told him, he replied "well you better hurry up then because the train is about to leave". With that, he turned his back on us and made his way to the platform where he turned to watch us coming down the steps laden with our bags. At this point he reminded us that if we did not get a move on we would miss the train. I cannot repeat my reply as my language was somewhat colourful.

We did eventually get home and I would like to thank this porter for his constructive and helpful attitude towards disgruntled paying customers and for his display of fantastic customer service skills.

Excuse my sarcasm but maybe they should learn some lessons from our European friends on efficiency and helpfulness as the problem is not only with the train times but also the people.

As it happens, it took a shorter time to travel from London to Paris, with a one hour change, than it did from Paddington to Great Malvern.

Martin Speight, Chestnut Drive, Fruitlands.