18th October 2011

It's a test of just how inclusive the big society really is. Travelling with a wheelchair certainly has its challenges. The booked assistance worked really well, apart from our being forgotten at Euston but the Train Manager rose to the occasion. Then we walked down to Kings Cross, Thameslink, managing to avoid manic commuters, rabid dogs and broken pavements, only to find that the last Brighton train had departed four years earlier, apparently we should have been at St Pancras! So back through the thronging crowd, past the Eurostar Terminal and onto the First Connect platform. Again the staff were great, helpful, courteous and got us onto the train, but there was no space for the wheelchair amidst the grimly determined strap hangers on the crowded train. It might be grim up North but travelling home at Eight at night after a hard day at work and paying a fortune to travel on an overcrowded train and then having to share the limited space with a wheelchair, it was a test of everyone's patience. So when we arrived in Brighton I expected a stampede for the doors, with us crushed in the rush. But surprisingly and refreshingly, No .... People stood back to allow us to get off the train. A cheery Station Attendant placed the ramp and Hey Ho, there we were, the first stage of our journey completed, so let's hear it for the commuters on the 16 43 City Thames Link to Brighton train a magnificent testament to the bigness of our society, maybe the 8 13 Brighton to Victoria won't be so bad after all on Wednesday morning? Now if First Connect could just lose a couple of seats and create some wheelchair spaces .........