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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:
Stickysnot · 23/10/2019 17:06

I think the couple should have offered to move too, however posting their photo is nasty

nokidshere · 23/10/2019 17:08

She should have thanked them for being rude because their behaviour got her upgraded to first class. Good result I say.

53rdWay · 23/10/2019 17:11

If the couple had been struggling to get up/move/find other seats, they could have said that to the train crew person who came along. They’d have probably ended up in first class themselves if that had been the case.

Paintedmaypole · 23/10/2019 17:11

I have no sympathy for any of them. The couple were rude and out of order for hogging someone else's reserved seat. The mother of the children was given a good alternative by the train company but had to make a deal of it. If I was her and the couple had got on after me I would have got the children to squash up anyway and offer the lady a seat. The couple may have booked a seat on the cancelled train which makes it the train companies fault, we don't know. The mother expressed pride in her children for "facing them down" very inappropiate IMO and then publicly shamed them. A bunch of rude fuckers all round.

broomzoom · 23/10/2019 17:13

It appears that the older couple weren't apologetic & if those seats didn't belong to the family why did they get moved to 1st class?

To those who are against social media shaming what about when others film & share racial abuse?

Stickysnot · 23/10/2019 17:20

@broomzoom a photograph doesn't tell you exactly what happened

EssentialLeap · 23/10/2019 17:51

The couple should clearly have moved, but two wrongs don't make a right, and publishing the photo on twitter is just as bad if not worse. I don't understand why anyone thinks that kind of public shaming is OK. However furious I felt with someone for sitting in my seat on a train, I can't imagine doing that - I think that would make me worse than them, just in a different way.

From the sound of it neither the couple nor the extra special home educating 'writer' would be particularly good company or role models for anyone!

Alsohuman · 23/10/2019 17:53

Six of one, half dozen of the other. It wasn’t the finest hour for any of them.

TheCanterburyWhales · 23/10/2019 18:00

Ach I missed a trick in September. I'd booked my reservation to London, train was carriages short, guard said reservations won't be respected because train is short.
I stood all the way

I could have got into the Daily Mail with a sadface of me standing with my case in the doorway and uploading a picture of the people in "my" seat

I really must learn to be more of a twat.

pearldiver19 · 23/10/2019 18:04

@Beveran - There was no need for the ‘heavily pregnant woman’ to stand. That big lad of hers could have shifted out of the seat instead and let his mother sit down.

Imagine having three big lumps of kids like that that would sit there and let their pregnant mother or two old dears stand in the aisle.

Over my cold dead body would my kids ever have been allowed to sit in a seat that an old person needed more. Imagine having a teenager who would expect an old person on a train to stand up so they could sit down. The shame of it.

If I was that mother, I would feel like a failure. There are more important things in life than being gifted.

CravingCheese · 23/10/2019 18:08

She had pre-booked the seats. Rude young people turn into rude old people. I wonder if they would have allowed their pre-booked seats to be taken from them.

Exactly. Happened recently to me on a 3+ hour train journey. Angry

broomzoom · 23/10/2019 18:08

@Stickysnot I didn't say it did.

I just asked the question if people think it's right or wrong to film others racially abusing strangers & then sharing it on social media?

ffswhatnext · 23/10/2019 18:11

And how would you know the older person needed it more simply by looking?
Age isn't an automatic need.

It might be unbelievable to some, but yea it can happen that more than one member of a family has hidden disabilities.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 18:18

Imagine having three big lumps of kids like that

And now people are insulting her children. I assume she told them to take the seats. Hmm

53rdWay · 23/10/2019 18:19

'old dears' Grin

KatherineJaneway · 23/10/2019 18:19

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

But they surely would have said that at the time if they had needed the seats? By saying 'reservations don't matter' you are basically saying F you which is no way to resolve an issue like this.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 18:22

Some people think like the thief who asks you nicely for your wallet, then, when you say no, says, “Cheeky bastard! I said please and everything!” And then just steals it.

You can ask someone for a favour. The fact that they refuse doesn’t entitle you to take it anyway.

TheFairyCaravan · 23/10/2019 18:24

The train wasn't short. The elderly couple were just rude.

A spokesman for CrossCountry trains said it was a shame the family was "let down by others who ignore the labels", but hoped they enjoyed the "extra space in First Class".

L

Sunshine1239 · 23/10/2019 18:31

They should have been kicked off

I’m my case there were plenty of other seats - the train was half empty and a single old lady refused to get out of our reserved seat (which had a table)

It was hugely embarrassing but good on the guard for kicking her off at the next station

Bad response by the train

They should have been told to move end of

BertrandRussell · 23/10/2019 18:45

Will people please stop the agism?

sweetiepy · 23/10/2019 18:47

I know the elderly couple shouldn’t have taken the reserved seats but to be honest, if my children had seats and 2 elderly people had to stand, I would have made my kids get up and give them the seats!

Where have manners gone, when children sit whilst the elderly have to stand?

RushianDisney · 23/10/2019 18:48

Having read her article about her 'gifted' children, I have less sympathy.

WanderingBar · 23/10/2019 18:50

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of what happened, it is shit to photograph people like this and post the images on social media.

It is inviting a worldwide mob with pitchforks to attack and causes no end of harm. Hopefully one day it will be seen to be unacceptable (because it is) and people will stop doing it.

greeneyedlulu · 23/10/2019 18:53

How can you see that she's poorly from a pixelated photo? Probably just an entitled rich twerp, lots of those round Cheltenham! But seeing as the woman and her children got a better seat it worked out but she is right, continually letting people get away with crap like this is what makes them think they are more entitled!

seaweedandmarchingbands · 23/10/2019 18:53

I know the elderly couple shouldn’t have taken the reserved seats but to be honest, if my children had seats and 2 elderly people had to stand, I would have made my kids get up and give them the seats!

But that presupposes that you are sitting down, and you see two elderly people without seats standing. This is the reverse of that: two elderly people turning up at reserved seats and just taking them. Why do they then deserve the courtesy of your children?