Roundabout
Carriage and Deportment
By KATHARINE WHITEHORN
SITTING for once in a Ladies Only compartment the other day, I realised that one of the unsung advantages of these bolt-holes is that they are small-boy-proof as well as man-proof. A school party surged against the window and receded like a wave; and from the next compartment came the desperate adult cries of 'Stop that!' But now I hear that
the Ladies Only, already gone from long-distance trains, are to be allowed to die out on the suburban lines, too, as open-plan carriages replace corridor-less coaches. So there will be nothing any more to stand between us and the sex-maniacs.
The trouble with sex-maniacs is that we
know so little about them. Other bogies that have terrified women through the ages have all had their comforting wodge of sur- rounding superstition, even if it was seldom true. Charms would keep off the Evil Eye, bulls avoid people not dressed in red, witches couldn't cross water, bears never attacked women (or was it corpses?). But there's no helpful super- stition about people who attack in trains. Can we say, 'It's too early in the morning' or 'Not on the Aylesbury line'? Perhaps maniacs seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses—but there again, they may have a spectacles fetish : we just don't know. If BR are really letting the Ladies Only compartments go, they should put out a
booklet. One can imagine the style they'd use : Beelzebub Brown of London Town Nightly travelled up and down Seeking girls to rape and kill On the line to Winchmore Hill. . . .
Or
This is the tale of prudent Maud Who pulled the communication cord. . . .
Far from cutting down on segregated compart- ments, I think BR ought to think out a lot more. Smoking and non-smoking they recognise; I imagine this was originally introduced not so much to protect non-smokers from the fumes as to protect smokers from being frowned upon. Different times, different tics: what we need now is a generalised Nuisance Compartment where all those who wish to eat oranges, paint their nails, shave, type, whistle tunelessly through their teeth or play transistor radios may do so without reproach. It is urgent about the transistor radios: since they are so small that you cannot, any more than with smallpox, tell who is a carrier.
And what about a compartment for people with children? Everyone knows there are only two sensible ways of travelling with children. One, favoured by those who have none, is to tether them securely in the guard's van, going along once or twice in the course of a journey to offer sugar-lumps and, make sure they have not broken loose and bitten the guard. This, pre- sumably, was what BR had in mind when they fixed the same rate for half-fares and dog-tickets. The other, applauded by parents, faces up to the fact that you cannot ask a small child to sit still in silence for hours on end. So they must be allowed to look out of the windows—all the windows— to ask questions, eat sweets, bang their toys rhythmically toiether and hand their sticky way to the corridor along the knees of their fellow- passengers. Would it not be a comfort for mothers to know that there were at least one or two com- partments where no one could complain?
I rang up the British Transport Commission and suggested it, and for five horrified seconds they thought I meant a carriage for children to travel in by themselves. 'I don't think we could keep our trains running if we did that,' they said. 'Even if we removed the communication cord.'
My ideal train would have none of this first- and second-class business. The traveller would choose between compartments marked Ladies Only, Men Only, Nuisance, Silence, Children, Animal Lovers, Non-Smokers All Grades. . . . I'm serious about the children's compartments.
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