Multiple choice (longer text)

If you walk through Millbrook station on a weekday morning, you will probably hear music. At the end of platform 2, there is an old piano, painted bright yellow, and anyone can sit down and play it. The idea came from Hana Sato, a twenty-three-year-old music student who uses the station every day.

‘I saw a piano in a station when I was on holiday in Paris,’ Hana explains. ‘People stopped to listen, and strangers started talking to each other. Our station always felt so grey and unfriendly. I thought, why not here?’

Getting permission was not easy. Hana wrote to the railway company three times before anyone replied. In the end, a manager agreed to a three-month trial, but only if Hana found a piano and paid for it herself. She put a message online, and within two days an elderly man called Mr Price offered her his wife’s old piano for free. His wife had died the year before. ‘He said she would love to know that other people were enjoying it,’ says Hana.

The piano arrived in March. Some passengers complained about the noise at first, so the station decided it could only be played between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Since then, there have been almost no complaints. In fact, the station staff say that people seem calmer and more patient, even when trains are late.

Now the trial has finished and the piano is staying. Hana visits it every week to check that it is in good condition, and a local music shop tunes it for free twice a year. Her favourite moment so far? ‘A little girl played the same simple song every morning for a month. Then one day she played something completely new, and the whole platform clapped.’