They say that travel broadens the mind, but if that were true, the most experimental thinkers would be flight attendants (all those stopovers on long-haul flights), and though I’ve had quite a few fun evenings with them, I wouldn’t say the ones I met were “out there” intellectually. You’re going to get gossip about disagreeable passengers – hopefully famous – and where the best airport shopping is, not theories about where Francis Fukuyama got it wrong.
Though I grew up desperate to leave my hometown of Bristol (which I understand to be extremely beautiful now, but which felt like nothing more than a cage when I was young), I had none of the wanderlust that some of my friends report as teenagers. I didn’t share their desire to see faraway places with strange-sounding names and obtain carnal knowledge of the fitter inhabitants.
No, I just wanted to get to London, where my life could start (when I say “start” I probably mean where I could be paid to be offensive about almost everybody and everything, but you get the gist) and when I got there, that was enough for me for many years. As a kid, I slept under a map of the London Underground, more beautiful to me than any postcard of the Maldives. I was literally living my dream.
I gave a wagonload of excuses to my first two husbands for not wanting to travel – “fear of flying” was a reliable one. But the main reason I didn’t fancy it – apart from lack of curiosity about the world – was that I didn’t relish the idea of getting stuck with either of them for days on end – weeks, even! – with no recourse to the company of others.
Conversely, when I met my third husband, I couldn’t get enough of holidays (and I turned out to absolutely adore flying) as I was so keen on his company. But I can’t say it broadened my mind in any way – and when the Brexit ballot came around, off I trotted like a good Little Englander to vote Leave. (As well as book a trip to Barcelona to celebrate when the result came in.)
Then one day – like living in London and consuming cocaine before it – I just went off travelling. It was before Covid and before my disablement two years ago. I’d just had enough, probably because I’d had so much.
There aren’t really any upsides to being in a wheelchair, but I do feel great relief that I lost my desire to travel before I lost the use of my legs. Because for those of my disabled brethren who nurse the desire to venture beyond their own postcode, the travelling life is very difficult indeed. My friend Leyla – both she and her husband being severely disabled – had a rotten time in Florence recently. Before they even got there, there was a terrifying incident on a moving walkway at the airport where both of them fell at the final hurdle; as Leyla put it: “Luckily, I have no legs to lose.” In the end, they spent only two days of their week in Italy outside of the hotel, as everything was just so effortful.
To be fair, we’re both old ladies – we’ve had our fun. But I find it angering when young disabled people have to suffer for their modest desires to live a life when it’s not bordered by – as mine is – the pub on the block to the left, the pub on the block to the right and the pub across the street.
I was horrified by the recent report about 24-year-old Phoebe Tesoriere, who had to crawl through three carriages of a Great Western Railway after travelling from Paddington to Bath (she was hardly attempting the Silk Road to Samarkand) as her wheelchair would not fit through the aisle and the designated disabled space was beyond the platform, making use of a ramp impossible. “I was crying,” she said. “People were staring. One passenger reached down to stroke my back and apologised to me, telling me what was happening wasn’t acceptable…No disabled passenger should ever have to crawl.” (GWR said it was “really sorry” and had “let her down, both when we helped her board and at several points during her journey”.)
Once more, concern with mental health appears to be crowding out the physically disabled – as with the growth in personal independence payments (PIP) and other benefits – perhaps because we are unwieldy and take up more room? Of course, it’s a good thing that those with mental ailments are no longer treated like freaks. But it’s no good banging on about your “diversity strategy” when a physically disabled woman has to crawl like a dog through one of your trains.
I still sometimes feel the need to make the rare trip to my bank in Brighton which, I have to say, looks increasingly tatty; not so much a town which looks like it’s helping the police with their enquiries, as Keith Waterhouse wrote, as a town which looks like it’s being moved on by the police for swearing at people in the street. But that’s enough for me; I’m always happy to get back to Hove, sweet Hove. So praise the Lord and pass me the latest edition of The Hovarian – no more roaming for me!