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Harriet Harman meets Thelma Dowsett and Jeane Smith at the Age Concern Centre in King’s Cross |
Dame Joan taking a stand over bus seats
Older people’s champion speaks out over public transport issue
SOME of the worst offenders pretend to be sleeping or bury their heads behind their newspapers ignoring the walking sticks and grey hair. But they are all guilty of breaking the unofficial rules of bus etiquette: Get up for the elderly!
Dame Joan Bakewell spoke about a growing trend among passengers to ignore the basic code of bus travel and railed against parents who would rather give a spare seat to their children than frail OAPs.
The 76-year-old said her own experiences on Tube trains and buses had left her feeling physically weak, but that she had not felt strong enough to speak out.
Dame Joan said: “I’m still amazed that parents will allow small children to occupy a full seat. I’ve not had the courage to say, ‘They’re young and growing stronger, and I’m wilting and growing weaker’. It would be nice if mothers carried a child on their knee and let someone else sit down.”
The Heart of the Matter presenter was appointed Older People’s Champion by the government in November and was in King’s Cross on Tuesday to help highlight the second reading of the Equality Bill, designed to help pensioners. She was at the Age Concern Centre in Cromer Street with Harriet Harman, the Labour Party’s deputy leader and the Minister for Women and Equality.
Dame Joan, who lives in Primrose Hill, told the New Journal the social standard for youngsters to stand for older people was in decline and called for a return to old-fashioned common sense.
“There’s gross inequality in society,” she said. “Old people are invisible when they’re on the Tube and people push past them. In the abstract this Bill is about changing perception. Legislation can’t do it all, but it can trigger a change in state of mind. It will draw attention to the issue.”
Her comment follows weeks of lively debate in the New Journal’s letters pages between so-called “mum-bashers” who think giant-sized buggies are too big for buses, and parents who want more understanding from fellow passengers that using public transport with babies and young children is hard work.
Dame Joan accepted that times had changed from the leave-your-pram-outside-the-shop era of her childhood, and that parents had more to worry about now.
But she maintained it does not make sense to force older people to stand as children sit, and warned that the elderly already stay at home out of fear they will not cope with challenges outdoors.
Dame Joan said some had written to her complaining that a lack of public toilets had made them scared to leave their homes.
“There is a duty of care in the public sector, in planning and design decisions, to consider the impact on the old,” she said. “The closing of public loos for example. I’ve had old people write to me saying it’s embarrassing, but can I do something about this.”
The government say that by 2050 more than half the population will be over 50 years old, and plan to bring in the bill by 2010.
£500 scam: Cashpoint theft warning
DAME Joan has become the victim of a £500 cashpoint scam in Camden Town.
She said she was withdrawing money at a bank’s hole in the wall in Camden High Street last week when she was approached by a young couple who told her the machine had broken.
Having already entered her card, she went into the bank to alert staff – but in doing so, she fell prey to a crime which police fear is happening several times a week in hotspots like Camden Town and Holborn.
Dame Joan said: “The moment I put my card in a couple of young people said, ‘we were trying to stop you, that machine doesn’t work’. They said ‘we’ve just lost our card’ and told me I needed to press cancel and re-enter your number. So I did. Of course I didn’t think it was a scam.”
She added: “My card didn’t come out so I went in to tell the bank. They said they thought it was probably a scam and within 10 minutes they’d taken out £500.”
Camden police’s WPC Vina Barrett warned people to “totally ignore” anyone who approaches them at cashpoints. |
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