After asking for transit, I flew a straight leg at 3000 ft from Earls Colne to Duxford this morning as part of a lap from Elstree via Stapleford and Panshanger.
When I first spoke to Stansted I was overhead Stapleford and, after passing my message, also said "and I will be asking for a transit direct Earls Colne to Duxford in about 12 minutes". They said "No problem, just call overhead Earls Colne" and indeed it was no problem.
I think we should all be asking for transit clearances by default on any trip we do. By all means, have a good backup plan if asked to hold or refused, but if we never ask, we will never get and, more importantly, we will not show up on any usage statistics and we can easily be forgotten about when it comes to future airspace discussions.
B.