. . .In a series, I fear, that looks destined to need the addition "of Many". . .
The trip to the Barbican was a disaster.
Having been a bit puzzled as to why the TfL website told me I could get a lift at Paddington to the Tube platforms and then to 'accessible" Liverpool Street, not recalling where there was a lift, and the map showing an entrance to Paddington some distance from where I thought it was, I decided to phone TfL.
About ten minutes in, it suddenly became clear that the woman on the other end was simply looking at exactly the same 'Step Free Access' tube map I had on my screen; and had used the same TfL Journey Planner I had, and was becoming just as confused as I was.
It wasn't I thought, terribly helpful either, that though I'd prefaced my request by saying I needed to know because I would be using a wheelchair, that she offered me an alternative with an escalator.
I've never tried to get a wheelchair up or down any escalator. (At least not with me in it.) They are not really designed for it. We are not talking Mini Coopers bouncing up and down flights of stone steps in Italy here. Though I admit it could be potentially quite exciting for the other travellers to watch.
Eventually, she said she would phone the station supervisor. She relayed what he told her to me; that was that yes, there was a lift from the 'Suburban Entrance' (though neither I nor she, who should really have asked) was terribly clear as to which one that was. But to platforms that meant I would have to change at Edgware Road, which usually means climbing flights of stairs between platforms. Mini-Cooper in Italy time again.
By this time I was beginning to think it would be a lot easier and quicker to plan a bank robbery, the get-away route and nick half-a-dozen Mini-Coopers into the bargain.
Time getting on, and getting far too short now to risk the bus, I and my helper decided to risk the quickest way we knew and the hell with it, confident, we thought, that at least once we got to "accessible" Liverpool Street it would at least be plain wheeling from there on.
Wrong again. We started with a bus to Queensway. Well, that's not quite right. Since it appeared that the bus that would get us closest to Queensway was running, not every five minutes or so but more like every fifty, we got one that meant a longer trek to it. That, by the way, convinced me of my urgent need for either one of those huge rubber horns you see on vintage cars, or, as a friend suggested over the weekend, one of those battery-operated foghorns they make for yachtsmen. But that's another story.
Queensway, we recalled, had a lift. What neither of us recalled was if there were steps, or how many, there might be to the platform after it. Of course, there were two steps up from the pavement to get to booking hall. "Why no ramp?" asked my pusher. Why indeed? Converting two shallow steps (which meant I had to get out of my wheelchair and lever myself up them with my crutches and a nice polished brass handrail, is hardly a major engineering or architectural feat.
However, as I approached, the guy at the wide ticket barrier did warn me there were "a few steps" down to the platform. Here, of course, we hit the problem of defining a "disabled quantity" as opposed to a "non-disabled quantity". To me, as I and my helper faced them, it was not "a few", but "a lot'; in fact, very close to "too many".
Well, I managed to crawl my way down them, while a helpful passenger aided my companion to lug the wheelchair down them. The same when the train arrived, when we realised to our dismay that the height of the train above the platform meant we would have to do the same. Score three now for helpful fellow travellers. One of whom helped me while another helped get the wheels on board.
Of course, this was now getting perilously close to the beginning of rush hour. So we will pass over those people who glowered a bit as they hit their ankles against the footrests of my wheelchair, parked at the end of the carriage as out of their way as I could manage. It is always a mystery to me, how so many people so consistently manage not to see not just the person in it, but the wheelchair itself as well. It doesn't seem to happen to small children and buggies. Or even travelling cats in cat baskets. As the crowds increased, I folded the footrests in and bore with fortitude all the people who trod on my feet instead. Fortunately, I don't feel a lot in my feet, so that's not really a problem in a way.
Well, it has been today, as I discover they are both rather swollen and one is bruised. . .Quite apart from what it did to my nicely polished shoes.
I spent most of the journey watching each platform with increasing dismay, as I mentally measured the height and realised it was not possible to get a wheelchair off the train without a ramp at any of them. "But," I reassured myself, "Liverpool Street must be different, it's accessible." It wasn't. Score five, now, for helpful passengers.
And score another (in its way) for a helpful Tube employee on the platform, who told us the only way to get to a lift from there was up an escalator. Repeat performance of earlier. At least the platform supervisor did give us directions to the lift that would take us up to the main station and street level. Or, stuck in a corner, behind a staircase, and small, we'd never have found it.
And so to the bus that would, finally, get us within some sort of striking distance of the Barbican that wouldn't sprain my wrists getting to it. The easy bit, we thought, at last.
There was a fifteen minute wait for the bus. A friendly woman (plus one) said, though, that we were only 'ten minutes' ' walk away. Glancing at the wheelchair, but still talking to my helper (so that evens out the score, minus one for that) she amended that to 'fifteen minutes'. "Ah," my aide and I thought simultaneously, "We're in amongst the quantum theories of 'disabled v. non-disabled mathematics' again. Could be twenty or thirty."
So we decided to wait for the bus. Just as well, because we soon found out there were roadworks all along the route, pavements narrowed and crowded, and crossings blocked with barriers, probably ramps on and off them inaccessible meaning detours everywhere. "Probably a good thirty minutes of infuriating hassle at least," was what the looks we gave each other said.
But, no, getting the bus still wasn't the 'easy bit'. The bus we wanted draws up alongside a narrow pavement. Which is low, too. The bus ramp failed to hit the curb three times before the driver cottoned on to the fact the bus was too far away, and I couldn't get a wheelchair off the kerb and onto the ramp. When she did, it was, since the kerb was very low, almost too steep for my 'pusher' and utterly impossible if I'd been on my own. Score, now, seven for helpful passengers.
We'll add plus two for the Barbican front-of-house boys who looked after my wheelchair for the concert and brought it right up to the door for me afterwards. And another for the one who told me how to lock the (splendid!) electric sliding door of the disabled people's loo.
We got two buses back (after we'd discovered that apparently the bus that took us from Liverpool Street to the Barbican takes a different route back) seeing, by luck, one passing that went to Paddington, albeit it looked as though it was heading in the wrong direction. And another bus home from Paddington station.
Oh, yes. Score one for the helpful passenger who shifted a shopping trolley so I could get my wheelchair against the backrest for the journey. Minus one for the one who owned it and then came to complain to my helper (not me, so minus one more!) that we'd moved it. Though if I'd been in a bad temper instead of taking all this stoically, she could easily have made that a minus twelve for the night.
It doesn't take much. Just one can ruin your day. I haven't really included the first bus driver, you may have noticed; I suddenly got superstitious abut where that would take the count.
Next time, it's the bus. And thank goodness that the 'Paralympics Effect' is still working. No-one who helped had to be asked; everyone offered before there was even time to think of asking; and everyone who did smiled and waved away our thanks. Which goes a very long way as to explaining why the final 'score' of the night wasn't a minus. Even using 'disabled quantum maths' calculations.
No comments:
Post a Comment