Has there been a thread yet about the woman who stood in front of a train full of yobs?

[sethstarkaddersmum]

here

Good for her. (Assuming there isn't another part of the story we've not heard yet.)

It's cheering to see someone refusing to allow drunks to abuse the other passengers and refusing to allow the guard and the driver to get away with doing nothing. The guard should have called the police well before it got to the stage where this lady had to force them to act.

"When I got off I had Harry in my arms and he was crying" - then she decided to get on the tracks, all the while thinking the football fans are the ones setting the bad example

Yes, the fans' behaviour was unacceptable, but no-where near worth risking the life of a boy's mother.
She was lucky the driver saw her below before moving off or that turbulence from a passing train didn't pull her underneath.

good on her. I could see me doing something looney like this on the spur of the moment too.

Well, I think she should be bloody applauded for standing up to them. 'And here's to you, Mrs Robinson!'

She was talking on our Welsh local news last night, and I thought she came across very well. certainly not an 'attention-seeking' or a vigilante . Just a normal mum who is sick and tired of having to put up with foul language and aggressive behaviour.

If there was any example-setting going on, I think to show that if you are being bullied you can stand up for yourself is pretty good. If my mum had done somthing like that I would have thought she was wonderful-it wouldn't make me go and play on the tracks, for goodness sake.

30 aggressive football fans is very intimidating. She had put up with abuse for a while before she resorted to getting on the track. And as for calling the police from her mobile, how many of us would do that right in front of them? Plus the signal is very patchy in the South Wales valleys,she might well not have had one.

I would have more sympathy for the other passengers in her carriage who had their journey disrupted if they had helped her out.
I have seen groups of young men quail under the force of a number of united grannies but most of the time no-one helps out and the aggressor just gets worse.
(I know there was another carriage too though.)

She sounds certifiable.
I think that there are ways to handle these things and this isn't one of them.

Didn't she have a phone? Did no other passenger have a phone?
Although she was being brave, I think she chose a stupid way in which to do it.

I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to follow in her footsteps should they find themselves in such a situation.

Good for her.

'Turbulence from a passing train' ROFL. Mumi - you haven't been on a train in Wales before have you? :o

Maybe Jones the Steam would hop out and say 'Hello now Ivor, what's all this?' and Ivor the Engine would blow his whistle and the football fans would run away.
or are trains in Wales not quite that far behind the times?

:o Not that far off to be honest

Hmm... although I agree, being faced with a mob of loud drunks is extremely intimidating, I wonder how exactly she asked them to stop swearing?

We were camping the other week, there were a large group of male teenagers on the pitch next door who drank all night and then at about 8 in the morning were having a loud, verbally agressive conversation about who'd fucked who and what a fucking cunt some mate of theirs was. I popped my head over the dividing hedge, wished them good morning and asked if they wouldn't mind keeping the F-s to a minimum as we had some 5 year olds with us.

They were absolutely lovely, apologised and (loudly) told each other off for swearing. I bet if I'd gone steaming in demanding they be quiet, they'd have given me untold abuse. There are ways and ways of doing things. And I say that as someone who is all in favour of direct action... :)

Maybe the other people on the train didn;t bother to intervene because, as Lovecat suggests, this woman went barrelling in issuing orders at a bunch of football fans who might have been swearing but were not swearing at her - if she was aggressive from the start then other people might have thought either 'It's her own fault if they shout back' or 'She can handle it by herself, actually'.
Because, generally, groups of drunk lads will stop swearing and tell each other off for swearing if asked nicely by the parent of a young child - or indeed, as soon as they perceive a young child (I was once on the tram with DS when he was 3 and a group of sweary teens. Who spotted us and one of them said (much to my delight) Oi, stop fucking swearing you cunts, there's a fucking little kid here.' And they did shut up.)
All the actual facts in the report add up to attention-seeking, tantrum-throwing, self-righteous twat and I rather hope she gets prosecuted for trespassing on the railways.

Brave of her but I would have called the police myself if the driver refused. Shame on him for doing sweet FA btw.

They weren't merry drunks, they were nasty drunks, they could have easily turned on this family.

Before you know it, the story about this woman being a hero is replaced with the story on Crimewatch of some poor family being attacked by football hooligans, all caught on dodgy CCTV.