Young children on the train on their own...

[highlandcrusader]

I'm on a train from SE to Scotland. 5 young children, ages between 2 - 13 I would say got on and settled on the seats near me (table seats area). They all looked absolutely exhausted and all feel asleep as soon as they sat down. There are no parents or carers anywhere near. Also, they smell quite bad, like they haven't washed in a while.
AIBU to think this is weird?

I know it's none of my business but it feels strange to me. Especially the little one who can't be older than 2 should not be on a train without an adult?

I too have met someone who boarded from the age of 5 as did her sister (came up because I live near the school they were at so they were reminiscing). Would have been 60s/early 70s in their case. And agree, not great memories as that is just too young.

Hmmm... 8 children is REALLY unusual

Do they all look to be from one family?

OP you did the right thing checking out in a non judgemental way - I expect he did just leave other group with older child as sitting together might have been hard. Seems a bit off on first glance to leave two year old with them but for all we know she is particularly attached to one of the siblings she's with. Maybe just tired and sweaty as they've had some busy days out and/or had to get up early to catch the train.

That's horrific! My 4 year old can barely manage her own bookbag and lunchbox walking through the school gate! How on earth could adults ignore such a young child in that situation 😭

I had this before and the parents had put themselves in 1st class....

But steam locomotives were a lot slower than today's transport.

Oh how embarrassing for you, the OP wasn't asking for baseless and irrelevant opinions on what heritage the children are.

yeah, reported that one for gross and utterly unnecessary racial stereotyping which contributes bugger all to the thread.

A friend of mine was sent off to boarding school, quite alone, on a train, aged 4. This was back in the 70s and nobody took a blind bit of notice as they sobbed, struggled with their luggage, and had to find their destination station with no help.

I’ll file this in my ‘things that didn’t happen’ folder. The 70s wasn’t the bloody Middle Ages you know. People didn’t ignore sobbing 4 year olds. Or send them off to find a school they didn’t know how to find!

How did. 4 year old find their destination, were they able to read it?

For posters saying kids don’t smell. They do. I work with kids for over a decade. And I think parents become immune to kids smelling but lots of kids generally have a smell.

It's clearly nonsense. A sobbing 4 year old ignored? Nope.
Also - with luggage? Negotiating trains? Maybe they were 14, not 4.

When we came home on the ferry Sat there was a family with 8 children so it is possible.

No boarding school in the Uk takes 4 year old boarders.

I have first hand knowledge.

The youngest is 7 - prep schools.

@Missedmytoe That is nonsense. Children aged 4 in the 70s did not go to boarding schools and travel alone on trains.

I was working then, and travelling by trains a lot across the UK.

I too don't believe it happened like that, even then there were limits about how young children could be to travel alone.

Exactly.

I have older friends who went to boarding schools at 7. There is no way a child of 4 is accepted at boarding school. There is no such thing.

I have friends who have taught in boarding schools since the 1970s (before they retired.)

A bit too much 'vivid imagination' at work on this thread.

Children as young as four certainly did board, usually when parents lived abroad but sometimes due to family circumstances. My elderly neighbour was sent to Scotland to board from Ceylon when she was four, never felt close to her parents after that.
I imagine it did linger on as a practice into the seventies in very small numbers, as a lot of old fashioned things did. Even now some boarding schools still mention occasionally taking children younger than seven in their blurb.
Also in the 70s I was put in charge of my younger siblings on a coach from Scotland to Cumbria, I was 11, they were 10 and 7. I remember finding it quite stressful as my brother started mucking about and I was very nervous of missing the bus after the toilet stop! Nobody checked we were OK, or spoke to us at all!

Had you been a lost, sobbing 4 year old, people would have helped.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1240929-Boarding-school-at-four-years-old
Here's a vintage Mumsnet thread about early boarding for those who are adamant it died out in Victorian times.

I boarded at 6 in the 1980s, but it was unusual and there was only one other boy aged six. Lots of seven year-olds.

I can only tell you what my friend told me. In all the time I have known them they've never lied to me.

They spent a lot of time as a child living in an orphanage - so perhaps it was there they went. Maybe they travelled with an older sibling who abandoned them on the train in favour of their friends. All I can relate is what they told me.

Again, I don't wish to derail OP's thread. Had I realised my comment would cause so much consternation I'd have not posted.

I had a friend who went to boarding school with Nuns, aged 4 ( just pre war).
She left just before 7 when her aunt returned from Germany 1939 and insisted she came home again.

I guess it was more common earlier on. Her mother and aunt had gone at a similar age. ( Though with the 'excuse' that their mother had died so the father just kept the oldest one (9) at home to look after him.)

I roomed at Uni with a student whose parents had sent all 4 away to Boarding School , aged 5, so immediately post WW2.

Definitely a thing in the previous centuries - Mrs Austen , I believe sent her children away as babies and only had them back when they were more 'civilised'.

@ElizaMulvil
Some upper class families sent babies to wet nurses in Jane Austen's time, and earlier. It wasn't uncommon but not all of them survived.

This doesn't equate with a tale of a lone 4 year old negotiating a train journey with luggage, finding a destination with no help and being ignored by all other adults whilst sobbing into the bargain. In the 1970s. When boarding for 4 year olds was not a thing and lone tiny children were not sent up chimneys. I suspect the friend's memory has been somewhat embroidered down the years as it's a good tale.