Children in Need is back on our screens on 19th November. I was once forced to act as a phone answerer on the show (luckily, they didn’t have a T-shirt big enough) and, to be honest – and I’m ashamed to admit this – some of the callers and their “aren’t I a wonderfully caring person” attitude made me feel quite ill.
I have never claimed to be a particularly caring or generous person, but…
Late yesterday morning we found ourselves standing on a Piccadilly Line train: my wife was heading for the Egyptian Book of the Dead exhibition at the British Museum, while I was paying my first visit to the Sir John Ritblat Gallery at the British Library.
Because of an inevitable signal failure (why they can’t just pull their fingers out and fix the bloody signal systems beats me) the train was absolutely packed. An elderly couple (sort of us 25 years on) were also standing, both dressed to the nines and wearing poppies. The seats were all occupied by a fairly typical cross-section of Londoners – youngish, multi-ethnic, glum-faced, sound in limb, vacant of mind, all plugged into various MP3 devices (tsk-ah! tsk-ah!) and all studiously ignoring the distinguished-looking oldsters, who, from the look of them, were gasping for a sit-down (I mean the other couple, not us).
At Earls Court, a mother (could have been a grandmother) and ar severely disabled boy, who I guess was about 12 or 13, struggled aboard. The boy could just about stand, but you could see it was an effort to keep his twisted body upright. The woman was obviously keen for him to be as independent as possible, and contented herself with warning him to grasp the pole tightly so he wouldn’t fall over. The kid had a strange, piping voice, but was perfectly articulate. His face was - and there’s no other way of describing it - hideous, and he had a lovely personality: he was evidently dead excited to be out and about in the Big Smoke. His mother/grandmother was intent on his safety, but not in the least smothering, and she also struck one as an extremely nice person (I’m not being in the least sentimental here).
Even though the people occupying the seats had assiduously ignored the plight of the two distressed oldsters, I assumed they’d take pity on a severely disabled boy.
Not a bit of it!
The horrible bastards hunkered down, as if their arses were glued to the fabric.
Two young men who looked as if they might hail from the Middle East or Pakistan stared at the boy with a chilling lack of empathy that almost amounted to hostility. Two young white men standing further down the carriage looked at the boy, suppressed sniggers, and turned their backs.
Some of these wretches got off at Piccadilly Circus and the elderly couple and the disabled boy and his companion were finally able to sit down. The latter two got out at Holborn: you could see how precarious the child’s descent from the carriage to the platform was, but he was still chattering excitedly.
What in the name of Christ have we in this great city become?
When Children in Need once more invades our TV screens, no doubt we’ll all pledge zillions because some TV personalitiy or soap actor or comic tells us to. Everyone’s always banging on about compassion these days: even the Tories have taken to wearing their bleeding hearts on their sleeves (not a pretty sight). But, while we seem to be perfectly willing to shell out cash in a Pavlovian fashion when bullied into it by a celebrity or an organization, we seem to be losing the ability to respond like normal human beings to someone who needs our help and is standing three feet away from us!
I suppose that, had Terry Wogan or Bono squeezed into our carriage and told us how lovely and “giving” we all were, and shown us a video highlighting the suffering of the severely disabled and the elderly, passengers would have been throwing themselves out of their seats onto the floor, sobbing hysterically. Or if they’d been allowed to go on a sponsored “Fun Run”, they’d probably all have been happy to dress up in Hippo costumes and take off right then and there. But evidently asking them to show a spark of spontaneous sympathy without the attendant pleasure of their friends and family lauding their saint-like generosity or without someone famous holding up a flashing sign reading “Be Compassionate” is nowadays simply out of the question.
I may not be Mr. Compassion – but I like to think I’m human enough to lend a helping hand when it’s genuinely needed.
Anyway, I hope both couples went on to have a wonderful day – we certainly did.
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