AIBU to be angry my sister left my 16-year-old alone?

Surprise surprise, the OP was another dump and run 🙄

She's 16! She's old enough to enlist for Christ's sake! She can sit in a busy public place and talk to someone without supervision.

When I was 15, nearly 16, I travelled from the UK across Europe on my own by coach to Italy (and back). I was fine.

It would have been weird for your sister to hang around like she was a child, and of course your daughter was going to feel a bit uncomfortable but she is 16, she needs to learn how to act in adult situations. Sounds like the arrangements were a bit loose but presumably she had your sister's phone number if there was a problem?

this - when a lady who worked with me in london was 8 months pregnant and clearly very pregnant - she passed out on the platform ... and not one person stopped to help her. They just walked over her.

With respect to, your DD is 16.
Have you been too protective of her up to this point? She really, at that age, should have been able to cope perfectly well on her own.

London years ago was not the London of today. I was born there and was used to travelling in it. Even since the 80’s and 90’s.
If you knew it a bit and went with a friend sure, at 16 + and as a girl you could go round.
London now is far busier. Phones get snatched. Some tube lines are to be avoided at all costs. The last thing you want to look in London or anywhere like Manchester etc is a bit vulnerable and ‘lost’. Or find yourself caught up in a demonstration or road closure and not know another way to get from A to B.
Everyone saying the OP is being over dramatic, no.

I grew up on the edge of London and I now live in Manchester. I spend a lot of time in both cities. And this is scaremongering bollocks. There are no Tube lines to be avoided at all costs FFS. You are highly unlikely to be robbed.

And before someone says it... no, there aren't any 'no-go areas' either.

London and Manchester are literally just ordinary cities and if your 16-year-old can't manage to move around them, you've failed as a parent. They're not war zones.

It's not about busy, it's about new and unexpected. Not everyone can deal with the first time going somewhere busy for the first time with 100% confidence.

She goes to Brighton with friends too. Quite different feeling being with friends, as is Brighton as a place. That's my childhood hometown and I have lived in both Brighton and 3 different areas in London. London is far more confusing the first time and far busier. Brighton has one main long road that leads to the station from the beach and also easy to find from main shopping drag, less confusing.

This

She was cross with her sister. Who mum should have agreed with that she would stay.

I take it you have never travelled on the Northern line ever.
Don’t try to teach me about tube lines. I was born in London, worked in London for years.
The Northern line in daytime is not nice. Many tube stations no longer have staff on a platform and the route to get upstairs to anyone leaves you vulnerable if you needed to try. And as for other humans standing nearby, if there is an issue, forget it. They look the other way. And don’t want to get involved.

Legal work experience is usually pointless now because of GDPR etc. Back in the day they could shadow solicitors or support staff but now they can’t see anything client related

She's 16!

Surely if she lives near London she's been there alone before? I grew up on the edge of London and I used to go into central London all the time at that age. Shopping, gigs, days out etc. I did two weeks' work experience in central London when I was 15.

Plenty of 16-year-olds are in workplace apprenticeships. Do you think they're supervised by relatives? Do you realise that, at 16, she could join the Army?

You're really infantilising your daughter and she needs to get a lot more streetwise and independent.

Melodrama, much? DS has only just turned 14 and hasn’t even grown up in the UK, but if we’re visiting London, which we do reasonably often, he’s been taking tube journeys by himself for years.

And when the 7/7 tube bombings happened when DH and I were living in London, and all public transport stopped, most people at work in central London had no idea how to get home on foot. Everyone was buying A to Zs to figure out a route.

If she wants to work in those fields she needs to get a bit more savvy OP. Although actually, it sounds like she did OK, she just sensibly asked for directions. You say she's never been alone before, so presumably she has been and has some idea what to expect.

I'm really suprised teenagers living near London haven't been without adults before - don't they want to? Gigs, shopping, change of scene?

Which tube lines are to be avoided “at all costs”? Next you’ll be telling us London is under Shariah Law.

I'm thinking back to excitement I would have had as a 16 year old been given an "unsupervised" day in London.
The bookshops, clothes shops, record shops, pressing my nose on the windows of the guitar shops on Denmark Street...looking at stuff I could never afford, museums, my first "grown up" coffee in Bar Italia...

"Life is timeless, days are long when you're young
You used to fall in love with everyone
Any guitar and any bass drum
Life is a drink and you get drunk when you're young
Life is new and there's things to be done"...

OP should have gone with her if she needs help outside of her average age range.

Or as my mother always used to say 'You've got a tongue in your head. You can ask'.

@HelenaWilson Are you my sister? That's exactly what my DM used to say!

…. And if she knew her daughter that well she’d have realised she needed to make sure she knew how to get around etc. if I thought my kid might feel vulnerable I’d have had a chat in advance.

As for the concept of some tube lines should be avoided…. 😂😂😂. I’m assuming she was meeting them in daytime and not 2am, and some areas might be dodgy if you get off but not if travel through them, underground, on say the Bakerloo line. 😂

Of course you’re unreasonable to be “furious”.
shes 16, not 6.
I assume she has a phone to work out how to get to the nearest station and pop on the tube to get her train? And if you thought she lacked such skills and couldn’t navigate foe herself independently then why didn’t you check in advance what she needed to do?
my 3 teens have navigated London since they were 13. But I always checked that they knew where to get on and off public transport and be safe.

I also think your sister wouldn’t have arranged for her niece to meet 2 ‘Strangers’, that she knows, in a busy public environment if she felt they posed a threat.

you need to get over yourself and use this as an exercise to consider how you build some resilience in your kid.

To be honest at 16 I think your daughter should have known where she was going and where it is in relation to the train station.
You are being overprotective.
From being 14 I used to get a train from Paddington cross London to Victoria and get a train to my Dad's on the Brighton line. I bought an Ato Z so I could do some shopping in between.
Your daughter is launching into adult life in less than 2 years- better she prepares now.

London years ago was not the London of today. I was born there and was used to travelling in it. Even since the 80’s and 90’s.
If you knew it a bit and went with a friend sure, at 16 + and as a girl you could go round.
London now is far busier. Phones get snatched. Some tube lines are to be avoided at all costs. The last thing you want to look in London or anywhere like Manchester etc is a bit vulnerable and ‘lost’. Or find yourself caught up in a demonstration or road closure and not know another way to get from A to B.
Everyone saying the OP is being over dramatic, no.
The other thing is that at 16, some will be more like 20. Some 16 year olds might be a bit more like 14. A few years catching up to do. The OP will know her daughter and know where she sits on that scale.

Especially if she wants to work there. Aunty can't be expected to take her and then wait for her everywhere. It's ridiculous, OP.

You are aware you’re DD will be legally an adult in a few years time? Getting herself to a train station in an unfamiliar city will be the sort of thing she will need to be able to do…

How long do you intend to wrap her in cotton wool @Rubexellen?