To be sad that no one would help

[Parpadew]

Emergency last night and I needed someone to drive a forty minute round trip. That's all. Never asked for this or any favour really before. I offered to pay. No one would help. Not my mum, siblings. One friend would have but she's on holiday. Got a taxi in the end but it was sheer luck one turned up as it's not a well covered part of the country.

Feel really alone right now!

I’m sorry OP that’s just shit. You deserve better.

It is on the train company to put on alternative travel arrangements. I would be pretty miffed I came out at night for a friend's grown up partner and discovered the other passengers getting into a replacement bus or standing in a queue for replacement taxi service.

Flabbergasted as those saying it was a big ask. I would have picked up my brother´s fiance if she was stranded out in the middle of nowhere, no problem, but then I am not a navel gazing weirdo. YANBU. Especially when you never ask for help.
Something happened last summer and my brother´s take on it reshaped the way I view him, this sometimes happens and it is shocking when it does.

Post covid, taxis are much harder to come by - so many taxi drivers took on different jobs during covid and haven't returned.

We use them on a semi-regular basis and people I know who don't use them, or hardly ever use them, just don't understand how unreliable they've become and how difficult it has made things for people who don't, for a whole host of reasons, have a car.

Because, very generally speaking (and I know there are lots of exceptions), households who don't own a car are poorer households, no one seems to care.

Here's the facts posted by the OP over the course of 3 hours ...

Emergency last night and I needed someone to drive a forty minute round trip.
Got a taxi in the end but it was sheer luck one turned up as it's not a well covered part of the country.
Context is rescuing someone [male partner] from being stuck overnight at a train station after the breakdown yesterday.
Small village so no public transport or hotels.
The weather was ok where the issue arose (no warning).
It was absolutely luck of the gods that I found one after five hours.
No replacement buses.
I don't own a car.
I live in a city.
The train was not in the city. Obviously.
The train broke down between cities.

Any other 'details' are guess work slipped in by posters as far as i can tell.

I have so much to do this morning, i have no idea why i'm here c&p ing on Mumsnet 😅

I don’t think the minor details even matter.

Someone was stranded at a train station in the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t matter who.
(I thought I was OP originally but it’s been clarified it was her DP).

There were no buses, they couldn’t walk home and a taxi would take 5 hours.

OP rang round (I assume DP was trying to conserve his battery and ringing people he knew too) and her family members said no and I assume they didn’t have a good reason like young kids.

Most people would help out in that situation, as it was an unforeseen circumstance.

Some posters are implying that they would help OP but not her DP, which is why they needed to know who it was.

I personally would pick up my mother or my MIL in this situation, as I don’t think blood comes into it.
I would also do it for a friend.

@lightisnotwhite

My point is, if OP lives rurally (or semi rurally) SHE needs to be able to drive so that SHE can collect her partner in a situation such as the one last night.

It wasn't OP stranded at a station; it was her partner.

I would have done it for anyone without question. It may not be an emergency but you were stuck/stranded. I would do it for my neighbour I barely know never mind a friend/sibling. I live in a rural village though so maybe it’s different attitudes in cities where everything is at your fingertips.

Is he your boyfriend or partner you live with?

And what about his own friends or family?

Why was it your issue to sort out rather than his?

Who was at the station?

@Macaroni46 If you bother to read the posts, the OP says they live in a city and she doesn't have a car.

The station was in a village.

OP and partner live in a city
OP has not got a car
Person stranded in station is a man, her partner
OP got the taxi for him after 5 hours of trying

I considered doing this and then couldn’t be arsed, so thank you 😂

I have read the post, thank you

I never said it did... busses can't drive at 125mph on the straight and direct rails though. If you think you could drive a bus from London to Newcastle in the 3 hours it takes a train then your insane and it has to go around some place because there isn't a direct road the whole way.

Why wouldn't they help though? Can't you drive? Do you always ask them for lifts?

I don’t really understand the drama, you got a taxi so it couldn’t be that difficult to get one.
I wouldn’t have phoned everyone I knew until it was confirmed a taxi wasn’t possible for whatever reason, but this wasn’t the case.

Please read the OPs posts.

She wasn't there. The person she describes as her DP, who is male was. But the OP was ringing round her friends and family asking someone to pick him up and when they said no, says she thinks it's irreparably damaged her family relationships that they didn't help out in an emergency.

OP hasn't said how long she's known this DP, or what time it was. Or why the onus was on OPs family and friends to pick him up and why he wasn't calling round his friends and family to help.

So some people may be assuming that the DP is OPs BF who lives in another area, hence the need to get a train to see her, and why he didn't have friends and family he could call on.

And if that's the case, it seems a bit unreasonable of OP to be so angry at her family that they didn't drop everything to pick up her BF they might not even know well from the station.

@Mumof118 😂 You're welcome.

I don't think anyone else is reading it though ...

There’ll be a reason they said no, and it could be a perfectly valid one. We’ll never know.

Some years ago I got caught in a not dissimilar situation involving snow. I ended up two villages away from where I was trying to get to, waiting with many others for the 3 taxis to keep coming and going. People were sharing etc but there were a lot of people. I rang the friend I was visiting who can drive, even in snow, and has a car and had not yet been drinking and who had no dependents who couldn't be left. They made sympathetic noises and said they'd have the kettle on when I eventually got there. I'd travelled a significant distance that day, was 5 miles away from their house and yes I was pretty hurt and hacked off that they didn't come. Again, it goes back to the wider point of people's willingness, or not, to help out. Maybe we could, instead of focussing on nit picking details, discuss whether as a society we should be able to expect a hand, or whether any sort of expectations of help is entitled.

Does anyone here remember the post (about a hundred years ago) about a riddle involving a man going to the post office or something? Up some steps? No one could work it out.

This thread is like that riddle 😂

@housethatbuiltme
I've taken the train on the journey you mention, often, and also done that drive 1000s of times.

I also know that a coach wouldn't go to surrounding villages or small towns, but would stick to A roads or motorway.

A coach might get someone off the station platform, but it doesn't go round every single town en route to its destination.

Is that hard to grasp?

@housethatbuiltme actually the A1 literally does go direct from London to Newcastle..in about 5 hours granted, not 3 😁

Why is it on your family to pick your DP up? There are so many reasons why they couldn’t/wouldn’t, but surely he could have found someone, his own friends or family to help?