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Trouble on the bus with rude and selfish adults
• AS a girl (aged 16) living in Kentish Town I am used to being looked down upon by adults who brand every teenager as anti-social and rude.
However when I was on the No 134 on Wednesday July 30 I experienced far more than rudeness from these adults.
A severely mentally ill woman was on the bus, shouting down the phone to the hospital.
She was abusive to those who shied away, and used horrible language, but it was apparent to everyone that she was no physical threat.
When she asked those standing next to her to help her off at the next stop, with her wheelchair she was ignored.
Everyone turned a deaf ear to her explanations that she had severe learning difficulties. One woman she asked replied: “I don’t care what’s wrong with you”.
A sharply-dressed businessman was standing next to her when her folded wheelchair fell over and her Walkman smashed to the floor. Nearing her stop, she pleaded for someone to help get off the bus and on the bus behind. Everyone looked away.
The youngest person there, I was the only person to pick up her wheelchair and mend her Walkman before carrying her wheelchair from one bus to another. For all her abusiveness and nasty behaviour, which clearly stemmed from her mental illness, she was extremely grateful and relieved that she was able to get on the right bus. When I managed to get back on that same bus, I too was ignored by everyone. The women who had, five minutes before, smirked at me and laughed at this very ill woman, were now staring out the window, not shamefaced but indifferent and uncaring.
Young people receive much bad press nowadays. Yes there will always be certain problems with young adults in any society, but these will never, ever, be solved when the accusing adults behave selfishly, cruelly, and without a shred of compassion or sense.
Ruth Ehrlich, NW5
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