Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Elderly couple on train

276 replies

brummiesue · 23/10/2019 13:44

Initial thoughts were what utter twats they were especially after hearing that the woman in question is heavily pregnant. I then however saw the unpixelated photo and the poor woman who wouldn't move looks poorly. AIBU to have a little sympathy for them now??
Link below hopefully
mol.im/a/7602911

OP posts:
SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:18

Amanda Mancino-Williams
Filed under: Authors

Amanda Mancino-Williams
Amanda Mancino-Williams is a freelance writer based always on land and never on sea. Her work has been featured on sites like The Huffington Post, Mommyish, The Synapse and Slackjaw. Her popular Twitter account, @Mandalikewine, was named by Playboy as one of the top 50 funniest accounts of 2015, and her tweets are regularly featured on HuffPost, Someecards, Paste, Playboy, and Distractify, to name a few. She is the humble keeper of three children, four cats, a quite lovely collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century decorative art, and a partner. In between tweeting and home-educating, she’s currently working on her first book, a memoir, about unconventional parenting.

ffswhatnext · 23/10/2019 16:18

I don't care who you are, if you are in my reserved seats I will ask you to move.
People reserve seats for reasons that are their own. On booked trains its rare to find every single seat booked. The couple could have easily found a couple of seats together. They did not need those table seats. If both required seats they could have approached other people on the none tabled seats.

I have also been on trains where reservations have been cancelled because of fewer coaches. Did I sit in the first table seat halfway down a carriage? Nope, I either sat in a none reserved seat or found help from staff.
There have also been rare times when there's been an error and the seat double booked. Did we sit there, nope we worked together to find a solution on a very packed train. Which I really doubt this one was, because usually packed and reservations cancelled means people are standing on carriages more than this one person.

And why are people paying to book their train tickets in the UK? It's free for everyone. Just ensures you have a seat, well unless you do meet entitled fuckers.

@AthollPlace I have in the past put a toddler on the table, and didn't do the usual reminder about people and being nice. I was that parent who thought all that annoying stuff was amazing, and just exploring their environment. Got a couple of chuckles when I said along the lines of and today their interactions include a couple of gate-crashers, who are such silly billies who would rather be stubborn and stay, instead of seeing some other lovely people. And everyone would travel happily and comfy.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 16:19

RedSundown

I don’t think she is responsible for people behaving unreasonably. They behaved unreasonably (first). Anyone confronting them about this in public is behaving unreasonably, and the Daily Mail pretty much always behaves unreasonably. But the thing is, some people need this sort of embarrassing exposure, to actually think about how they are making others feel.

PunkHairToday · 23/10/2019 16:20

she has 49K twitter followers. That's a big number for some ordinary person. I've googled her and she doesn't show up anywhere which makes me think her twitter name is not her real name ( who's called 'wich' or whatever???)

SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:20

“Unconventional parenting”. Hmm

GruciusMalfoy · 23/10/2019 16:20

@LavendarGreen

A google tells me she's a writer of some sort, and is apparently writing a book on "unconventional parenting". Never heard of her myself.

PunkHairToday · 23/10/2019 16:21

She’s a writer.

well, that's stretching it a bit.
The sites she writes for don't pay, so she is basically a blogger of sorts.

I know.

Paintedmaypole · 23/10/2019 16:22

but it does seem that old people feel they are more entitled to stuff fuck off and stop generalising. Stereotyping and generalising are a prejudice whichever group they are targetted at. On what evidence do you make that observation.

LavendarGreen · 23/10/2019 16:23

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Chivers53 · 23/10/2019 16:23

The thing that's worrying about these social media warriors is that it's only one side of the story. The writer (who labels herself as a writer, so was probably full of glee to have something to try and make viral on twitter) says the train was full. The table seats have more leg room than most of the others, and perhaps all of the priority seating was taken. Again, it was resolved during the journey so what's really to be gained, I'm sure she said her piece to them. Perhaps if they made it easier to reserve tickets other than online, via text, or having to pop into the station to buy the tickets the day before a journey perhaps they would have booked. With the state of the world its quite nice I guess to see such a petty story in the papers. And lots of train companies give first class upgrades to pregnant women, I had my season ticket upgraded for free and it's on many operators websites.

SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:24

I actually think the worse people are the other passengers, some of whom would have been younger and not in reserved seats who sat and watched a heavily pregnant woman argue with some 70yos over seats and didn’t stand and offer their seats.

PunkHairToday · 23/10/2019 16:25

On what evidence do you make that observation.

some of the rudest people I have encountered pushing into queues at shops or on trains, tubes and buses, are the very elderly. it's as if they over-compensate for their fear of being 'last' and make sure they get their elbows in first.

SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:25

For all anyone knows maybe the elderly couple sat there and politely said they didn’t feel able to stand and she said she didn’t care because she’d reserved the seats?

ffswhatnext · 23/10/2019 16:26

Should it matter who she is?
She was writing about a personal experience that many of us relate to.
People get shamed a lot on SM. And if it gives entitled people a needed kick up their arses is it really so bad? People need to learn that respect and manners work both ways. And that we are getting pissed off with this entitlement.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 16:27

For all anyone knows maybe the elderly couple sat there and politely said they didn’t feel able to stand and she said she didn’t care because she’d reserved the seats?

And? Obviously that isn’t super polite, but why shouldn’t she have her reserved seats?

PunkHairToday · 23/10/2019 16:27

@LavendarGreen She's a writer in the sense that anyone who contributes to those sites (without earning a fee) is a writer. Huff Post and Medium don't pay- they are a platform for bloggers and vanity publishing. Genuine professional freelancers who are paid for writing get pretty fed up with people like this woman saying they are 'writers' when all they are doing is contributing free material of dubious quality to sites that don't pay.

SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:28

And? Obviously that isn’t super polite, but why shouldn’t she have her reserved seats

Because maybe an elderly couple needed it more than 3 kids?

SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:29

She’s raising gifted kids —and writing badly about it—

medium.com/synapse/how-does-an-island-feel-b86629d5a7fc

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 16:30

Because maybe an elderly couple needed it more than 3 kids?

But that isn’t their decision to make. If they asked and she said no, that’s her decision. She reserved her seats.

BIWitch · 23/10/2019 16:31

@seaweedandmarchingbands

I agree that their age should be irrelevant, but am not sure it is. People react differently to older people.

@LochJessMonster

Buttttt it seems that old people do tend to feel they are more entitled to stuff.

Try substituting the words older/old with black. It's not good, is it? Then why should it be good to say this about old/older people?

Paintedmaypole · 23/10/2019 16:32

punkhair just your own observations then.

SleepyKat · 23/10/2019 16:33

Well obviously she can say no (and did) but it’s a pretty horrible person who would try and turf people in their 70s out of a seat of they’re claiming old age and frailty. If she’s telling the truth and they were being a pair of rude gits I have more sympathy but I suspect there’s two sides to this story.

ffswhatnext · 23/10/2019 16:34

Sleepy I could believe that if the table seats were the closest seats on a carriage. They aren't. If one or even both of you are unsteady, then surely would would have made prior arrangements for this. Train companies offer assistance service for a reason.
Common sense says a table has 4 seats, we are two people. Seats were reserved as a group.
If one had mobility problems, the other could have left the other one sitting near the carriage door whilst seeking help.
If it wasn't entitlement they wouldn't have made that comment. Instead, they would have explained the situation about reservations cancelled. If they actually were.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 16:34

Well obviously she can say no (and did) but it’s a pretty horrible person who would try and turf people in their 70s out of a seat of they’re claiming old age and frailty. If she’s telling the truth and they were being a pair of rude gits I have more sympathy but I suspect there’s two sides to this story.

I didn’t say she was nice. However ‘not nice’ she was, it doesn’t give them the right to nick her seats. Hmm

Sunshine1239 · 23/10/2019 16:35

This happened to me once. 4 of us reserved seats and elderly lady wouldn’t move

She was kicked off train at next station and rightly so

Swipe left for the next trending thread