When “Getting Home Safely” Isn’t Guaranteed

Yesterday evening, after attending the screening of the first episode of Celebrity Hunted in London, I boarded a late train from Paddington. Like everyone else, I was tired and just wanted to get home.

Sitting in front of me was a young woman, early twenties, asking two other women if they would sit with her. She explained that a man opposite her had been harassing her. I listened and observed. The man, in his fifties and clearly very drunk, kept trying to involve himself in their conversation before eventually falling asleep. I heard her say how relieved she felt.

But that relief didn’t last.

As we approached Slough, she mentioned it was his stop and he needed to wake up. I stepped in to help, trying to get him off the train quickly. He was disoriented and too intoxicated to respond properly, and waking him only redirected his attention back towards her so he missed the stop.

We all ended up getting off at Maidenhead.

At that point, instinct and experience took over. I guided him off the train and away from her, with another passenger stepping in to help. Together, we moved him down the platform and out of her space.

Situation managed.

I wasn’t frightened of him. After 26 years in policing, I’ve encountered many like him. But that’s not the point.

He wasn’t a threat to me.

He was a threat to her.

What stayed with me was the contrast. On one hand, strangers quietly came together to support her, the women who immediately included her, the man who instinctively helped. On the other, the reality that she had to ask for that help at all.

This is still a common experience for too many women: calculating risk, staying alert, managing fear, just to get home.

It shouldn’t be this way.

We should all feel safe getting home