What's happened to this country?

Hi All,

Me and the wife went to Manchester on Saturday to see The Stone Roses play. We decided to go on the train so we didn't have to worry about driving back if we were worst for wear and it only cost an extra tenner. Going up on Saturday was no problems, but coming back the train was rammed and we ended up standing for the whole journey, no problem just a bit uncomfortable. So imagine my horror when a woman who is 7 months pregnant comes past us saying she has walked the whole train looking for a seat and not one person offered her there seat. A little later on there was an old couple who had booked seats in first class, but got on at the back of the train instead of the front. These also walked the whole train and not one person offered them a seat either, this couple must have been at least 80. The old fella said to his wife that he had fallen on the way through and had cut his hand. So you've got an 80 year old couple starting there holiday with a cut hand which in my view looked as though it needed a stitch and a pregnant woman that no one would give there seats to. We pickled up at Stafford and the fella nearest the door told the guard about the old couple and asked if he could get on the train and sort there seats out. Answer, they will have to do it themselves the train is to busy. What is this country coming too. This put such a dampened on an otherwise brill weekend.

Rusty

 

It makes you wonder, costs nothing to be polite.

 

Sorry your weekend was marred by ignorance Rusty...That's the exact reason i'm a luddite.........

 

The train wouldn't have been overcrowded in the first place if, oh I don't know, lets say a government decided that the transport infrastructure was important enough to keep hold of and look after instead of just giving it to some private companies to make as much profit as they can at the expense of the actual people that use it.

But that's a seperate issue. What we're seeing in this tale is the all too familiar degradation of basic manners and courtesy. In fact I think its deeper than manners and courtesy. The most ill mannered discourtesy people should still have basic empathy. People should still be able to look at someone who is much much older than themselves or otherwise less fit, and know that those people need to sit down more than they do themselves. Still, I guess now that the PC brigade will nail us up for recognising that someone is old or female or pregnant or anything else other than a carbon copy of ourselves, it could be understandable that some people are reluctant to offer a courtesy, just in case they are branded prejudiced. Its silly and unfair, but that's the world we live in now.

Oh, and despite still being young enough to have been brought up in the PC age, I'd still give up my seat for an elderly person or a pregnant woman. Fair enough it could backfire with me being branded as patronising or prejudice, but given that I sometimes have an argumentative streak in me, I'd be happy to take that chance if only for an opportunity to debate PC stupidity vs the practicalities of making sure someone else is actually ok.

 

Is that a Loli Ludd , Rusty Roots dont kick me off when I lived in London a older couple getting off the bus and the driver caught the husband in the automatic door and started to drive off everyone just sat their and did nothing , I jumped out of my seat and yelled at him and bashed the plastic window he stoped I got off and he drove the bus away !!!! drove it away knowing the man was in the road !!!

I picked the man up, in his late 70's off the road sat him on the pavement and called a ambulance and stayed with them until it arrived the wife who was in a right state herself said I was a "Angel and the kindness of stranger's", I will never forget that.

Yes late for work but I would of never forgiven myself if I had done nothing and just sat watching, the bus was 90% full and just me helped.


Spruce

 

Commuters. I was standing myself on a hot, packed train watching men in suits fail to give up their seats to an exhausted mum with luggage, kids and at the end of her tether. And on a rush hour train fail to give up their seats to an old fella with a walking stick, fortunately i was ablhim mine! These were all down in London, so I would blame it on that, but now northerners have failed too. I'll try and pretend it has something to do with being the wrong side of the Pennines

 

I'd give up my seat to an Elderly Pregnant Lady.

 

Ziggy !!!

Spruce

 

Didn't know you were pregnant Shiney?

 

I just wish I could have got up the train so as I could give some of the younger people sitting reading the paper or swilling beer a piece of my mind and I wish I had got the name of the guard so I could report him too.

Rusty

 

I used to sit on the floor in the parcel bit of the guards van, back when we had propper trains with engines & numbers you could tick off in your little Ian Allen book & platform tickets & a man selling flowers on the platform & steam & ...........

 

I'm not quite old enough to have known the days of steam trains, but I do remember as a kid when there was a thing called British Rail. Trains had seats you could sit on, and drivers that turned up to drive them, and they still worked even in the extreme circumstances of a leaf landing near the track, or a flake of snow being spotted in Norway.

And I remember putting my pushbike on the guards van, and a person called a guard looked after it and everyone else's stuff. And I remember my mam getting my little sister's pram onto the train, and an actual person would make sure there everyone got out the way and would then actually help my mam lift the pram onboard, and he'd then check everyone was properly on before blowing his whistle to tell the driver it was ok to go. And still, the train was usually on time.

 

That's remarkable, I know of at least a dozen people who went to that concert and I couldn't name one song!