Wheels and access and grrr!
Dec. 16th, 2015 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidgillonInto London last night to have a drink with university friends. One had suggested changing venue (Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, est 1538, current building 1666) given I now come with wheels, but we've been drinking there for years and it does good beer, so I said I'd be fine. And indeed I managed for find a step free route there from Chatham - high speed to St Pancras, then Thameslink to City Thameslink, which is only 200m from the Cheese, a lot closer than my old route got me (the rather noticeable difference in the two legs being the Javelins from Chatham have multiple wheelchair spaces, while the Thamelink service expects you to sit in the aisle at the door). But the Cheese was worse for access than I remembered, with a foot high step at the door, and multiple levels separated by several steps at a time. I arrived first, so had to get myself in, just as well I can get out of the chair, but there was no way I could get it to the bar and no way I was braving that crowd on my feet without crutches or sticks. Fortuitously I found myself a table and defended it from all-comers for about 40 minutes until the first of the others arrived and I could finally send someone to fetch beer!
Great catch-up with old friends, and just immediate acceptance of the wheelchair, which was nice. Then we moved around the corner to an Indian restaurant they'd tried before. Not bad (though £5.95 for a bottle of Cobra is wince-inducing), but the doorway, for no real reason whatsoever, was up a step, with a dogleg from one side of their (very narrow) frontage to the other. Only way to do it was to get out of the chair and take it in backwards. Then the tables were arranged down that same narrow width, so no chance of staying in the chair, the extra depth with wheels would have blocked the gangway.
And then all off our separate ways, with me back to City Thameslink, where there had been a double signal failure and people were NOT PLEASED. Trains were running late and cancelled, but I just wanted to be put on the first one that arrived and go two stops to St Pancras. I was sat waiting at least 15 minutes, then another 10 minutes or so on the train through to St Pancras,
Where there was no one to get me off.
Lots of people offering to lift me off (probably with undertones of 'and stop delaying my train home'), and me insisting 'no, just please find the guy with the ramp'). Meanwhile they were announcing the train was fast to Bedford and the doors were about to close, so I had to position myself with foot projecting out of the doorway for the doors to close on to, at least twice, to stop myself being hijacked to Bedford. The non-closing doors seem to have reminded the driver (I was in the front coach) he did actually have a wheelchair passenger aboard, and he came back to unload me using the onboard ramp. And as I got off I could see someone from platform staff finally approaching with a ramp of his own. I'd have been at least five minutes on my way to Bedford if I'd relied on him. Yes the guys as City were harrassed, but they had more than enough time to alert St Pancras I was coming and St Pancras more than enough time to respond.
So I whipped upstairs to catch the Javelin back to Chatham, and was promptly homed in on by a drunk wanting to know if I needed help. He was amiable drunk rather than aggressive, but possibly too amiably drunk to have appreciated being told 'No!' if the train was there. Fortunately the train wasn't there yet, and the guy with the ramp appeared just as it did - and apologised for missing me downstairs. The Javelin wasn't particularly busy and I ended up nattering with the guard for most of the journey - 'If I go off down the train then I might get caught up in something and not get back in time to make sure they get you off okay at Chatham'.
And then a final waddle up the hill home and to bed. Though I did have a neighbour knocking on the door this morning to tell me I'd left my keys in the outside - whoops!
Access is getting better, but there really is so much still to be done. Including public education, manhandling people in chairs off trains isn't a safe answer (especially at 11PM ten days pre-Christmas when most everyone will have had drink taken!) And this is London, which in many ways is streets ahead of the rest of the country.
Great catch-up with old friends, and just immediate acceptance of the wheelchair, which was nice. Then we moved around the corner to an Indian restaurant they'd tried before. Not bad (though £5.95 for a bottle of Cobra is wince-inducing), but the doorway, for no real reason whatsoever, was up a step, with a dogleg from one side of their (very narrow) frontage to the other. Only way to do it was to get out of the chair and take it in backwards. Then the tables were arranged down that same narrow width, so no chance of staying in the chair, the extra depth with wheels would have blocked the gangway.
And then all off our separate ways, with me back to City Thameslink, where there had been a double signal failure and people were NOT PLEASED. Trains were running late and cancelled, but I just wanted to be put on the first one that arrived and go two stops to St Pancras. I was sat waiting at least 15 minutes, then another 10 minutes or so on the train through to St Pancras,
Where there was no one to get me off.
Lots of people offering to lift me off (probably with undertones of 'and stop delaying my train home'), and me insisting 'no, just please find the guy with the ramp'). Meanwhile they were announcing the train was fast to Bedford and the doors were about to close, so I had to position myself with foot projecting out of the doorway for the doors to close on to, at least twice, to stop myself being hijacked to Bedford. The non-closing doors seem to have reminded the driver (I was in the front coach) he did actually have a wheelchair passenger aboard, and he came back to unload me using the onboard ramp. And as I got off I could see someone from platform staff finally approaching with a ramp of his own. I'd have been at least five minutes on my way to Bedford if I'd relied on him. Yes the guys as City were harrassed, but they had more than enough time to alert St Pancras I was coming and St Pancras more than enough time to respond.
So I whipped upstairs to catch the Javelin back to Chatham, and was promptly homed in on by a drunk wanting to know if I needed help. He was amiable drunk rather than aggressive, but possibly too amiably drunk to have appreciated being told 'No!' if the train was there. Fortunately the train wasn't there yet, and the guy with the ramp appeared just as it did - and apologised for missing me downstairs. The Javelin wasn't particularly busy and I ended up nattering with the guard for most of the journey - 'If I go off down the train then I might get caught up in something and not get back in time to make sure they get you off okay at Chatham'.
And then a final waddle up the hill home and to bed. Though I did have a neighbour knocking on the door this morning to tell me I'd left my keys in the outside - whoops!
Access is getting better, but there really is so much still to be done. Including public education, manhandling people in chairs off trains isn't a safe answer (especially at 11PM ten days pre-Christmas when most everyone will have had drink taken!) And this is London, which in many ways is streets ahead of the rest of the country.
