To think Simon Hoggart could have got up and helped this "fraught and harrassed looking woman" instead of just feeling sorry for her.

[bumpyboo]

This is what Simon Hoggart wrote in Saturdays' Guardian.

"Baby buggies seem to get steadily bigger, so that if you're behind two mums having a chat, it's like being blocked on a motorway while one gigantic truck edges past another at a total speed of half a mile an hour.

The other day two of these vast things, like scaled-down SUVs, were wheeled on to a packed bus I was in. The first juggernaut occupied all the space provided for strollers, so the other had to block the whole aisle, making it impossible for other passengers to move.

That mother looked fraught and harassed, and I felt sorry for her, but it didn't occur to either of them to get off and wait for a less crowded bus"

Err maybe you could have got up and helped her fold the buggy Simon?
I've sometimes waited for ages in London for a bus with space for a buggy so when one comes you usually have to get on it and when you've got a baby its pretty hard to fold the thing up and hold the baby as well especially on a crowded moving bus.
Here's the link if anyone wants to look.

www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/feb/06/climate-change-simon-hoggarts-week

Oh no his stuff about round Robins is hilarious, because they are inherently hilarious.

I don't mind him laughing at ordinary people, cos him laughing at MPs is so dead on!

Oh but he is just such a knob. He's sounded off about big buggies before. My problem is him saying that it didn't occur to either mum to get off and wait for another bus. No, because they might been waiting for ages, in the cold, been refused entry on to a previous bus because it already had a buggy on it, be trying to get to an appointment etc. etc. etc. Mums with babies in buggies don't travel on buses for fun y'know!

To the poster who suggested that Londoners shouldn't buy big buggies knowing they will have to travel on the bus and tube - for starters you have no idea what hell the bus and tube are like before you have a baby, and secondly, the bus and tube are hell even if you have the teeniest weeniest pocket-sized buggy that could float magically up the steps and not require any help to lift it.

[aaaannnnnd relax]

It's a running theme with this journo, bashing women with prams.

He did it a while back, moaning that there was a big pram in a hospital lift and that the child wasn't even in it. FFS man, why do people bring empty prams out of hospitals? It's because they have just left their baby there. So having a go at them in the Grauniad is a bit bloody sad really.

Anyway, it's just pollyfilla stuff really, having a go at women with big prams. Easy targets. Yeah yeah, if you are going to use public transport in London, get a Maclaren. That's obvious. Here's hoping for something original and insightful next week to earn your money, Mr Hoggart, eh?

I saw that one too domesticslattern - still fume about his insensitivity today. I was going to write in and protest at his knobbery, but couldn't be arsed in the end.

I wonder what his point is exactly? That a lot of prams these days are big? Wow - nice work if you can get it.

Didn't realise that SH has done it before re big buggies. I knew he bashed the round robin people though and that did annoy me as I LOVE getting round robins, I even get one "written" by my friends dogs which I know he pours scorn on occasionally.

MissM, completely agree, I have often had to let three or four buses go past before being able to get on one.

Many journos don't realise they live in a different world from most of their readers, I think. You don't get 2 buggies side by side on a pavement at rush hour. Most people on my local London high street aren't walking about very fast when I am going along with a buggy, so it's only an issue for a self-important person like SH whose personal rush hour is at some random time of day.

Also I very very rarely see anyone with a big buggy on a London bus, but if they do, I assume the gps bought it as a present. I've never had to fold my Maclaren, just waited for another bus.

Pah, to the whole non-issueness of it all.

Why is this a story worth printing? It's like saying ooh, someone blocked the bus aisle with a suitcase. OOh and someone else had another really big suitcase, so there were two really big suitcases and it was a bit inconvenient for poor me.

What a load of shite. Leave parents alone.

yes. aren't women using public transport awful?

ho wvery dare they have pushchairs large enough to get their shopping/ children in.

he probably just wanted to firm up his street cred by letting readers know he takes buses.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Simon Hoggart, for example, is a twat.

And Chandellina - that's what I was thinking too!

Agree with you, Karma!

I have a buggy I can fold with one hand while holding a 6yo dd on my hip because she is disabled. I have no idea why people with a 6mo baby can't do the same.

I don't totally love Simon Hoggart. But he has a point!! I have folded my Major in front of 2 mums with wide awake, happy cheerful 6m+ old babies in their 4x4 buggies, with a 6 year old child clinging to me, screaming (once) from the pain of moving her degenerated, arthritic hip, and they just sit there and smirk like they have some entitlement to keep their monsters up.

Maybe I shoudl start plonking my crying 6yo on their knee, let her explain (boy, can she explain!!!!) what is wrong with her, while I fold her buggy and stand so their perfect kids can sit in their perfect huge buggies!

(lol at the though of dd2 : I have Perthes disease I can't walk or run or jump or skip in case the doctors have to give me a new hip soon!). Soon = in her 30s bu tit does shut people up when she says it!

Weegiemum, to be fair those mums probably don't have any idea and the unspoken rules of buggy etiquette do suggest that the younger the child (particularly the under-1s), the greater right they have to remain in the buggy.
I think you have no choice but to explain or simply keep your daughter in her buggy and let people think whatever they want.

Thing is though, he didn't suggest that they fold up the buggy, just that they get off and wait for another bus. He's clearly never had to wait for a bus with a small child, big buggy or no big buggy.

Would love you to plonk your DD on his knee weegiemum, especially if he asked you to get off the bus. Sorry to sound ignorant, but what is Perthes disease?

Perthes disease is a degenerative hip condition which involves the entire head of femur dying and disintegrating inside the child's body, causing pain, stiffness, lack of movement and also poor sleep due to pain etc ....

It eventually resolves on its own, the femur head grows back - in 2-5 years! In that time, the child is only allowed a teeny bit of weightbearing, as anything more makes the bone grow back misshapen and so the child is at risk of early osteoarthitis (from 20+), rheumatoid if in the family (both my Grans had it, my mum does, I do) and early joint intervention (hip replacement at 30+ which means either repeat replacements or no more after about 50).

They are also at risk of dislocation and, as the bone dissolves (the point my dd is at right now), hip fracture.

Dd2 is 6 - she has been in a wheelchair at school and a buggy everywhere else but in the house since age 4. We carry her up and down stairs. She isn't allowed to stand for more than 2-3 mins at a time, I have to hold her on y hip while folding her big buggy on the bus as if I left her to stand she could fall and fracture her hip.

I don't want to dump her on SH's lap - though she may well be edified by the experience! I want to dump her on the lap of the smug 4x4 buggy drivers or the pass-remarkable 60+ women "you would think a child of that age could walk!!!". Dd is very quick to correct them, I can tell you (her mouth is not affected, though her teeth are!!!)

weegie, and a large hug too. Thanks for the explanation.

MissM - you say "To the poster who suggested that Londoners shouldn't buy big buggies knowing they will have to travel on the bus and tube - for starters you have no idea what hell the bus and tube are like before you have a baby, and secondly, the bus and tube are hell even if you have the teeniest weeniest pocket-sized buggy that could float magically up the steps and not require any help to lift it."

Well, no you don't have any idea how shit it can be, but I had my baby in London and I too didn't have a clue how hard it could be, but I still thought it might be sensible to get the smallest, lightest, easiest-folding buggy to make it as simple as it could be for me given I was a Londoner and therefore liking to be using public transport a lot. Lots of women do work it out so I'm constantly amazed how many Londoners don't seem to think about it at all and then get upset when they can't fit on the bus or get down the steps and wonder why harassed commuters get a bit narked with them. It's just stupidity to buy your most expensive bit of baby kit and not take into account one of the most fundamental things - how you're going to get around your city as easily and with as little hassle as possible. And besides anyone who has £600 to spend on a super tanker buggy is in most cases unlikely to have an issue finding an extra £50 for an umbrella fold buggy when on public transport. So, in general in these situations, and of course trying to be fair minded and recognise that there are probably a few exceptions , I have relatively little sympathy for mums who put themselves in this situation.

Nae bother .....

thanks for the hug. It does get me down sometimes. We are back for another x-ray in 2 weeks but I know from her pain levels we are going to have another 6m - year of this.

Ban Big Buggies!

Or ... give disabled kids priority if your baby is awake and my dd will entertain them while he/she sits on your knee! (while i look around the bus wondering where 8 & 10 yo have found to sit! Miles form the buggy spaces, you can be sure!)

Well I'm no fan of big buggies either, but I think Simon Hoggart could find more pressing things to write about.

Another hug for weegie cos I can and because your daughter sounds like a very cool little girl.

"wait for a less crowded bus"...ha ha...in London?

Oh thanks. She is COOL!

There was this one time when a silly old granny-type said to her at a pedestrian crossing "aren't you a bit big to be in a pushchair!"

And dd2 launched into "Well I have Perthes disease and this means I can't ...... etc etc etc"

The lights changed and the old woman walked off

Dd2 waited till she was mid crossing then yelled "didn't you listen to me!!!!"

Old lady didn't even flinch, but I was so proud of dd2. I bought her chocolate on the way home! She even shared it with me!!! "Aren't those people SO annoying Mummy?!"

Think SH has a point. I have a giant "can roll over a 20 mile sand dune" type buggy because I live in the country down an unmade road which resembles the Khyber Pass. I would never dream of taking in on a bus.

I have an XT for this purpose. Bugs me when I get on a bus with Mums living in the nappy valley in SW London with their Chameleons thinking its OK to block the aisle for any passengers who might actually need to get past.