Jenni Murray on why assistance on public transport must improve
Our columnist says there are some simple changes that could make age and disability less of a trial on public transport.
Our columnist says there are some simple changes that could make age and disability less of a trial on public transport.
This is Jenni Murray's final column for Saga Magazine which appeared in our April 2026 edition.
There’s an intensely irritating irony in the assistance that might be expected when you’re older, maybe disabled, but are determined to remain active and independent. First you turn 60 and, at least if you live in London, your Freedom Pass is issued. Marvellous. For a little while, I merrily travelled on the Tube, caught the bus and was even able to travel a short distance out of town by train, completely free of charge.
I bought myself a senior citizens railcard and found that longer journeys by train were cheap and generally cheerful. I saw friends in Kent and Yorkshire with no real worries about expense.
But then I became a little less physically mobile than I had been. Sciatica made climbing up the step onto the bus agony. Every Tube station seemed to have endless stairs or a terrifying escalator. The train station meant a long walk and then a bit of a climb just to get on the train.
All the things I’d previously managed with complete ease became agonising.
Friends and family were reassuring: "Don’t worry, it might be a bit hard to get up onto a bus, but there’ll be plenty of assistance on the trains and at the airport if you’re going a long way." I began to acknowledge that I was not as fancy-free as I had been, and should not only try to take advantage of things being cheaper or free for senior citizens (hate that title), but also learn that I must not be ashamed to ask for help or to be seen in a wheelchair.
There has, in recent years, been an acknowledgement that older people and disabled people are no longer happy to stay at home in a comfy chair causing no trouble. We want to get out and about independently, but might just need a little free and dependable assistance. And therein lies the problem. If you’ve left home and managed to get to the station or airport in a taxi (not free travel at all), when you get to departures or arrivals, can you rely on the assistance being there?
I finally learned who I need to call if I require a wheelchair at Euston, Paddington or Heathrow, but what a hassle it is to be waiting outside some freezing-cold station hoping the assistance will arrive before the train’s departure. Sometimes, a wheelchair arrives with only seconds to spare, or you struggle to clamber up the stairs just in time for whatever transport you planned to take. Stress!
Arriving at your destination is always a nightmare. Every other passenger will have left the train or the plane, and there you are, still in your seat, wondering if assistance has forgotten you. Sometimes they had, usually when my arrival at Euston from home in the Peak District was late and when I had a very early start for Woman’s Hour the next morning.
Of course, in one way I am lucky. I can still use my legs and feet, so I can get up, make my own way slowly to the door and manage a long and generally painful walk to the taxis. That's not the case for the bright and independent travellers who are unable to walk.
I recently interviewed Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson for Saga’s Experience is Everything podcast. She travels regularly by train from her home in the north to the House of Lords. She has the most marvellous form of transport, which I hesitate to call a wheelchair. It’s more like a little car in which she drives all over London on the pavements. She’s always in need of assistance on arrival because, of course, she can’t drive it down the steps from the train. She recently had to endure the nightmare of getting out of her chair by the train door, pushing it to the platform and crawling down the steps on her hands and knees.
There are some simple things that could make age and disability less of a trial on public transport.
Entry to and exit from buses would be possible if, as the law requires, ramps were always provided. Similarly, trains should be step-free. Clearly, it’s not so easy to get on and off a plane independently, but the wheelchair user at an airport can at least comfort herself with the speed of travel from check-in to departure gate. No queues – straight through, bypassing the shops so that you save money by not spending.
It’s the only thing I can think of that makes disability remotely useful or even pleasurable. Otherwise, assistance must improve.
(Hero image credit: Mark Harrison)
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