On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 11:53:33 -0000, Paul Scott wrote:

I thought that when you bought a travelcard you were also issued a paper
ticket which you had to carry and show on demand.

You are issued a paper record card. You do not have to carry or show this
on demand, although some train company staff seem to think you do.

Presumably its quite useful to have a ticket if one end of your journey has
NR gates
though, so it would be quite understandable for them to ask for it...

All NR gates in Zones 1-6 have Oyster readers.

(Romford used to be mentioned as an exception to this, but that has
probably been fixed by now.)