Expecting 73 year old mother to travel to visit us?

Sometimes it's just the thought of having to set off and deal with the tube or trains that would put a person off having to use either. I'm not sure how close your mum is to a train station that she can get on and you can meet that train at your nearest station, but if she didn't have to do the tube bit, she might be more open to travelling by train to see you.
Could you arrange and pay for a taxi to collect her from her house and drop her to the train station perhaps? Might that be an option? She would pay for the train ticket but you would pay for the taxi.

Just a suggestion.

My mum struggles with trains but can fly with assistance. Have you organised assistance for trains?

Public transport can be an absolute pig for many reasons.

Walking to the bus stop.
Standing around waiting for a bus.
People shoving their way in front of you to get on the bus.
Standing on the bus trying to not get sent flying.
Getting through people who just won't move so you can get off the bus.
Making your way through crowds of people, crossing multiple pavements and roads to get to the train station.
Getting through the barriers at the train station.
Walking down (or up) loads of steps to get to the platform - lifts and escalators are frequently out of action or are in completely different directions to where the passenger flow is directed.
Standing around waiting for the train.
People shoving in front to get onto the train.
Lifting oneself and luggage onto the train.
Standing on the train (often whilst other people's massive cases have seats and aisles to themselves)
Getting down off the train onto the platform with luggage.
Going up or down steps from the platform with luggage (see earlier comment about lifts and escalators).
Getting through barriers with luggage and people shoving in front.
Finding way to tube station that may or may not be easily accessible.
Waiting on platform.
Getting on tube with luggage and no seats.
Getting off at correct station with luggage. Platforms frequently have massive bloody leaps down from the train.
Making way out of tube station, lifts or escalators not guaranteed, weird, confusing routes not well signposted.
Possibly having to find another part of the same tube station for an ongoing tube or travelling to the connecting rail station.
Repeating attempt to find correct part of rail station, steps,platforms, trains.
Getting off again.
Making way out to buses.
Catching buses.
Walking to destination.

Add to that extra difficulties, such as

Cancellations
Weather
Large crowds
Unfamiliarity with area

and age/health related ones, such as

Back pain
Hip/knee pain
Shoulder pain
Lack of peripheral vision (maybe eyesight is deteriorating) making it hard to see directions/signs/adjusting to the people barging their way in front or judge the leap down from the train onto the platform with luggage.
Hearing issues making it hard to hear announcements or know quite what's going on
Being conscious of being smaller and less agile than the people around
Stiffness in joints meaning sitting/standing/walking quickly and securely is unpleasant
Lack of toileting facilities
Just being tired and weaker physically

Compared to a cab to an airport, pretty much level surface all the way, assistance more available (rail assist is far more unreliable when you're actually reliant upon it, as any search of X/Twitter will demonstrate), a guaranteed seat for the majority of the journey and absolute priority transport services?

I know which one is more tolerable - and it's not the one that gets her to your front door.

Doing it all the time makes the difference, if the OPs mother has some anxiety and doesn't do it "all the time" it will seem very different. My husband used to work in London and lived there Monday to Friday, I'd often go and stay and it was no issue. Now I go years without going to London and it seems much more of an issue.

Is it the tube across London? I'm 70 and drive/meet up with friends/take trains but recently went to London and I found the tube a bit overwhelming. The crowds pushing and I had to use two tubes. I honestly felt like it was the first time I felt like "a little old lady." I'm not nervous about travel generally so if she has some anxiety that might be the issue.

Could you meet her in London and do the last stage of the journey with her? Might not be reasonable as I obviously have no idea how far that is.

I moved away from my family so am used to the travelling back and forth (similar distance). I would be offering to go and pick her up and take her back again and if it wouldn't work on those days, I would change the days even if it meant her staying longer. There are several times I have done day trips for family events up there (with and without my husband and our children) because it would have been too expensive to stay over, so I know it's ok to do the long trip sometimes. I did not get on well with my mum and she died when I was 18. To me, any time you can get is precious and worth the extra effort. I did a lot of that kind of thing for my dad until he passed away and I am really glad I did. I also used to accompany my daughter on half the train journey when she was a teenager so she could get used to it and that was lovely too. Similarly it was a train to London and transfer across to another train. I would take her across to the final train. On her way back, I would meet her off that first train and accompany her the rest of the way. The travelling time together was lovely. Maybe something similar might work for you and your mum? I hope you find a solution.

I think the idea of halfway is perhaps she gets the train from Southampton to Oxford then you pick her up for the journey to Leicester. Fictional route but I think you can get the idea. Alot if transport stress is transfers and connections so reducing that to one or 2, but you only having a 3 hour round trip not 8 might be doable.
I work in healthcare, some 95 year olds are amazing whereas some 60 year olds are on their last legs and it's not always obvious why.

@Bowies OP drives, that’s clear in her posts

It’s quite far for both parties and it seems particularly stressful for her with her anxieties - but also a difficult journey on different modes of public transport for you (assuming you don’t drive) depending on the ages of 3 DC.

If DM then doesn’t feel comfortable with your DH when she finally arrives, I can understand her position of not wanting to come and stay. It seems like until now she had been making an effort despite the above, so think you are being a bit hard on her.

It is possible to do a couple of weekend breaks (perhaps hotel) with you and the DC?

Well at that age I wouldn't expect my parents to visit if it involved a bit of travel. I would've beendown there with the kids although I don't know many old people that could manage around kids for ages anyhow so would keep an eye they didn't exhaust her to much

Whatever decision you make, just remember that your mum won't be around forever.

That's what I thought too

Why doesn’t she like your DH @Frazzledmum77

Three times a year isn't much.

Let’s agree to disagree on that @saraclara

Op are you a lone parent? Can't you go for a weekend?

Four hour drive up on Saturday, four hour drive back on Sunday?

Yikes.

Agree you can arrange golf carts to taxi you from drop off through passport, security and straight to place. A 4 hour journey with negotiating tubes is horrendous if you have difficulty walking, carrying bags, following tube maps etc....and she's 73.
Op are you a lone parent? Can't you go for a weekend?

My mum arrives Kings Cross. We pick her up. It’s just outside of the ULEZ, so we could park outside and run in and grab her. She’s now decided (at 86, fair play!) that she no longer fancies the train journey, despite being taken to the station, put on the train-no changes-then picked up from Kings Cross and driven back to ours. I’ve decided I’ll drive up to see her, I need the car to get round to hers (I stay in a hotel, she smokes, I can’t cope with it in a tiny house) and to take her round/see family.

The healthy life expectancy for both men and women i.e with no morbidity, is 63 for both men and women. Of course many people have manageable health conditions and live full lives well into their 80’s, but many don’t and start to struggle much earlier.

I used to work with an academic who finally retired, very reluctantly, well into his 70s. His wife insisted, I believe. As my bus laboured up a steep hill I'd see him cycling up the hill beside us. He worked very hard and very effectively and was better with technology than almost anyone I ever met there.

That sounds amazing..not everyone is the same though. .. and it would make for a boring qorld if so.

There are particular issues in Glasgow. Men in their late 60s and early 70s now were often heavy smokers in their youth and may still be smokers now. Drink, drugs, poor diet and all the problems that come with poverty all pull life expectancy down in certain districts. In most parts of the UK life expectancy is higher than 73, especially for women, and lots of older people have a decent quality of life and are reasonably active well into their 80s. Mental attitude varies enormously too. My aunt died at 80, almost housebound after years of ill health and frailty, which I think was linked to chronic depression after her husband died relatively young from cirrhosis. My Dad, her brother - same upbringing, better life choices and outcomes - lived to 89 and only had significant health issues in the last months of his life.

My mum still works at 73!

But not so much two separate train journeys linked by a tube journey, and including the wait times on the platforms.

Having said that, I'm guilty of not remembering OP saying the car journey was as long.

73 is the average life expectancy for men in Glasgow, most people that age will have some health condition. I hope the next decade is good to you but it is fact that in the next decade you are likely to encounter some health issues, that’s part of aging.

Yes, esp a long distance one where trains can go 125 mph for a lot of it