Notes from daily life in London: the commute
There was a sharp scream… we all stopped surging forward for a moment… as we cleared a gap we saw a woman had fallen down the gap onto the track………. After the shock a couple of people tried to pull her up while someone frantically asked the driver not to move yet. Then a couple of staff sprung into action and with one extra tug she was swung up like a doll! She looked terrified but thankfully no serious injuries … a bump and scrape or two but OK. As the train drove off, bursting to the brim, we saw one pink shoe of hers was left on the track – unretrievable as it had been well and truly ground in by the train… but it could have been so much worse of course.
A few minutes later a friend from work found me in the crowd and suggested we force our way somehow onto the next train – I tried but felt too nervous after what had just happened – the last I saw of my friend she was clinging on by her fingernails trying to get Inside – sounds funny but its actually hair raising! She told me she assumed I had got on too and was calling out to me on the train much to the bemusement of the other passengers but I remained steadfastly on the platform. We were all a bit more careful after that incident, but I eventually got onto another train. Even at the other end I then could not get on a bus – they just sped on by at top speed like stuffed-full cattle trucks in a rush to deliver their stock to the conveyor belt … so the rest of the journey was on foot.
Were we in some sort of war zone? Not quite but nearly – it was the latest in a long line of tube strikes and the usual scrum to board any overground trains or buses to get to work. Years ago bosses didn’t care about the hell to get in to work. If you were late you were late, and the only ones that made it on time were those doing car sharing. But these days at least allowance is made for the extra time it takes, although that doesn’t change the sheer hard work, sweat and pain in the neck it takes. I hate those words: tube strike. Tthey fill me with dread! I have been through so many, having travelled into central London for work since my teens. Of course there are even more people in London now, the tube system is even more worn out, (like us) and the privilege of using the transport system is ever more expensive. In fact, during the last mass tube strike it took me so long to get to work that London Transport charged me extra on my Oyster card as it was automatically assumed that I had done more journeys than were showing! I was too tired to care.
Looking behind you on the stairs or the platform can be truly frightening to anyone but an experienced Londoner – I have often thought that if anything happened – a bomb, a fire, anything, there would be no escape whatsoever.
The latest tube strikes are minimal – but over the years some have brought London to a standstill – colleagues spending all morning waiting for a bus at Kings Cross then going home, people stuck on trains for hours, unable to get home… the joy of an ‘all out’ tube strike! It doesn’t just affect the workers, it affects business too. People won’t advertise during a tube strike, they reason that no one will be out. Shops, cafes, pubs, theatres, are empty and business suffers.
The stoicism of Londoners shines through, most getting to work .We put up with the most embarrassing scenarios – heads stuck in armpits, standing cheek to cheek, backside to backside, breathing on each other, or the worst – looking each other in the eye (tube etiquette: never make eye contact!). A tube strike is the only time I see Londoners losing it – some idiot will complain about being squashed or their toe being stubbed – come on! – that’s not the spirit – that’s part of it – my leg has been numb for 20 minutes! And you must travel light – or you’ll soon want to throw the lot away! We do laugh too – is there any room? No!
The last few strikes have got me down. I’ve done it too often through rain, snow, cold, sweltering heat, Im beginning to wonder what on earth can be so bad about being a tube worker….?
I support the right to strike and withhold labour if mistreated. I take my hat off to tube drivers – it’s a dangerous job with terrorism and the regular violence. After the tube bombings they were very brave and were back working straight away keeping London going – amazing! They endure a lot – suicides under trains for example: who could get over that? But they also earn very good wages. I asked a tube driver why they keep striking and he said – look if you would all get a good union you could strike and get better wages too – you just have to make it happen! Who could argue? But when London relies on you to keep it moving is it reasonable to strike so often?? You’re just making fellow working Londoners suffer…. the ‘big bosses’ just drive in!
We have spent many a day flicking onto TFL’s website to see whether a strike is on or off… the mood of the whole office often hinges on it.
What’s the answer? I don’t know. At every strike there is talk of banning them on public transport but it never happens.
As I always say, I still love London, its my City, but it doesn’t half push me to the limit sometimes!
[Photos courtesy of Janice North]
Janice, I don’t see any quick answers to the crush. However, we at UKIP can certainly start working towards heading things in the right (i.e. correct) direction.
Strictly controlled, qualified immigration would be a good start. That would reduce the pressure on people to move further away from where they work so they can raise their families in efficiently run neighbourhoods that are safe, clean and have good schools with good waste removal so they have no pressure to change their first-world lifestyles. I see nothing wrong with being civilised. I happen to rather like it!
To those that worry about over-population I don’t think we should be encouraging anyone, especially not the globalist elites, to solve this ‘problem’ because we may not like their solutions. There’s plenty of evidence to suggests that as living standards rise, people tend to have fewer children.
Secondly, for civilisation to flourish, an abundant supply of cheap, reliable energy (electricity) is the first requirement. China is leading the way in this by building lots of coal-fired power stations at home and around the world, especially in parts of Africa which they appear to be recolonising. This can be very good for the local environment there as it obviates the need for people to chop down trees for firewood and also gives them the option of electric lighting, TV, home computers and clean water supplied to their homes, things we in the UK take for granted.
Now, back to the crush. Cheap electricity could facilitate the development of faster more efficient trains. Cheaper liquid fuels could even bring into being flying cars. The software guidance systems for this already exist! All that’s needed is fuel cheap enough to make them viable, and the engineers to design them.
But but but, what about the carbon dioxide! Well, it could easily be argued that Gaia created Humans (especially us Brits who started the industrial revolution) for this very reason and only just in time too. That’s because at the end of the last ice age carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fell to dangerously low levels which came close to extinguishing all the plants and animals on the earth.
And the Earth’s ever-changing climate? Well, I hate to disappoint all the greenies, but it’s the Sun that gets the blame for that! (Not us horrid Humans).
My brother lives in London, so I find myself travelling there once or twice a year to visit.
I’m failrly familiar with the routes I need to take, but it never ceases to amaze me how Londoners just seem to be constantly rushing around everywhere; when in Tube stations there are few people like myself just casually strolling around.
I walk down a corridor towards a platform, and see a train pulling up. Everybody on the platform and in the corridor rushes to the train doors, and I’ve seen people literally fighting their way off the train through the crowd of people desperately trying to get on.
I arrive on the platform as the doors beep and start to close, and people are hammering at the buttons. I look up at the departure board, and see the next train is due in “1 min”. I shake my head and wonder what all the panic is for. As I board the train, I look back down the corridor and the rush has begun again.Calm down people, there’s another one two minutes behind!
I moved out of London 4 months ago and have only been back once. Things I miss? The Southbank. Decent cinemas. The British Library. UoL Libraries, London friends. Things I don’t miss….. Rats, mice (plagues of them) , urban foxes, police helicopters, being the only Briton on a bus full of foreigners, people spitting in the street, litter, graffiti, Romanian beggars and shoplifters everywhere, thieves, insane pub prices, insane housing costs, sirens……. And London Underground in rush hour….
Janice, why on Earth do you put up with living under such horrible conditions? Your life doesn’t have to be like that. Even for most English people it isn’t like that. Vote with your feet, as millions of former Londoners already have.
The answer is a huge Total Nuclear World War and a subsequent reset for the human species, as there is no acceptable alternative option.
Obviously wont happen anytime soon but happen it will.
I hate backpacks. they take up as much room as another ( close ) friend.
To AW One of many routes, after Brexit, Britain can follow to survive and prosper ( already started in Germany and Japan) . This is the pursuit of Quality and The end of the throw away culture. These are pivotal. And the first step as soon as we are out is to remove the culture of retail ( cheap, cheap, cheap )and return it to making, or finding, or creating, or summat. One truly beautiful or useful item or one with memories is better than pretend beauty and a house and bins full of rubbish.
It should be noted that the occasional politician or civil servant has managed to insert the odd sentence here or there to open avenues we could take towards the future. Only very occasional, mind you.
Today London, tomorrow the World.
Ever more people, fixed size planet.
Loss of habitat, loss of species.
Polluted oceans, polluted air, much orbiting space junk.
Environmental campaigners with worthy objectives ignore the big picture.
“Quality of Life” not a political objective.
If current trends continue there is no long-term future.
If London is a good place to be then inevitably more people will want to be there. And the bigger and the more densely populated it becomes the less it is that good place.
There are alternatives. But what authority plans to limit World population growth? Who has plans for towns and cities where people can live within walking distance of their work? And so on, if you care to give it some thought.
I do not have “the answer”. Nor does anyone else, it seems. But we could debate the issues and the alternatives, and so make a start at ensuring there is a long-term future.
Perhaps Mother Nature will have an answer. The over-population of the world, which is not finished yet, might be considered a plague which has to be destroyed before it destroys the world, and as with all plagues, Mother Nature will try to kill off most of the problematic humans while leaving a few who can then breed again so providing her with more victims in the future. The trouble is, how is she going to do it? If there is a war, with the weapons we have available now it could mean that the whole human race is killed off and this would not suit her. She keeps trying plagues but we’re getting too good at stopping them (remember Ebola?). It might be global warming – ? No, I don’t think so, but perhaps another Ice Age? Or an asteroid strike? I don’t think there is time to find a way to find and colonise other planets. But Mother Nature will have to think of something soon.
Until then, I’m afraid the Tube Crush is likely to continue.
I’m betting the farm on teleportation to a planet of shapely technologically superior cockroaches.( Sympathetic) At my age you got to be realistic.