Last night all those using South West Trains were delayed. There
were various signalling problems late on in the day, but the majority of the
carnage was due to somebody committing suicide at Wimbledon.
I’ll moan about delays and endlessly promote the need for
better service, but what I don’t understand is some of the vitriolic bile being
spewed out by some on Twitter last night. Yes, the disorganisation is an issue
and yes, the communication of the Twitter team should be matched by the staff
on the platforms, or as someone rightly said: “We all understand &
sympathise re disruptions/delays, all we ask is accurate info.”
I’m not going to name and shame, for it really isn’t my
place, but did you happen to see some of the tweets last night? Oh. My. God.
Sometimes I hate Twitter. It makes you acutely aware that people exist who have
a completely different opinion to life and the universe. What on earth is the
point of telling the South West Trains twitter team that they are (in no
particular order): “W*nkers”, “c*nts”, “get up off your ar$e” “shower of
useless sh*te” (to name but a few).
In all the melee, it seems to have been forgotten that
someone died. And according to the Samaritans, someone takes their own life
with alarming regularity on the railways. Instead of blithely commenting on
their selfishness, or, as in one particularly grim case, offer to “get a
firing squad to save them the bother”, perhaps you non-sympathisers could stop
and think of the human element. Firstly of the train staff and emergency
services who had to bear witness to such a horrific scene and secondly to somebody
who felt so incredibly unwell/desperate/crazed that they felt there was no way
out. If you’re lucky enough to have never suffered from the kind of mental
torture that leaves you feeling like this, bravo. But don’t expect the great
majority of us to applaud your ill-informed opinions on suicide.
