When I was a kid, my friends and I stood up for older people on the buses and trams We didn't mind one bit. We clung onto the back of Mum's seat or stood on tippy-toe to try and reach the leather strap-holds dangling from the overhead rail - "Nearly there - Uh, maybe another year and I'll be tall enough to reach the strap!"
Standing up in the tram or bus made us proudly feel grown-up.
I was in a bus this morning. There were loads of kids in the bus with me (the teachers' strke in town had families galore pouring into the city to take part in a protest march to support teachers and their lack of staff and pay). About ten kids were sitting down while adults were standing.
When did things change? When did it stop being children standing up for adults? Now it was adults standing up for children? Guardian grans plonked their grand-kids in seats and stood furiously guarding them. Parents sat surounded by seated kids. Young teens sat in groups, heads down looking at their phones.
In my secondary school days, Transport Prefects boarded buses and trams, eyes peeled searching out uniformed transgressors who dared to sit while an adult was standing. No Transport Prefect on board? Then the driver ordered every school kid in the bus to stand up for adults. And, sheepishly, we did.
So ... understandably it was a shock for me today to discover so many children sitting in buses while adults were standing. What a turn-around since I was young.
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