Mum’s the word
My mother was 95 last week. She came to stay and on Friday we had lunch at West Mersea Yacht Club in Essex where her late brother was a member.
Mersea Island is connected to the mainland via Strood Causeway which is the only way to reach the island ‘unless you're sailing in by boat’, which we weren’t.
It’s almost five years to the day since my previous car was written off due to flood damage so I wasn’t going to take any risks. We therefore arrived early to beat high tide when the causeway can disappear under several feet of water.
It struck me though that it must be strange having every journey on and off the island dictated by the tide, which changes every day. Tomorrow, for example, high tide is at 02:33 and 15:15. On Friday it’s at 05:19 and 18:22.
The previous day I took my mother to see the new Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, at the Everyman cinema in Cambridge, and yesterday we took her to lunch at The Old Hall Ely. It’s an old Jacobean manor house, recently renovated, and is now an ‘adult only’ hotel.
As it happens I was unaware of the ‘adult only’ policy until I read about it after our visit. I am curious, though, because it’s promoted as a wedding venue and, in my (very limited) experience, most large weddings are teeming with toddlers and babies.
Anyway, my mother went home this morning the way she came - by train. It takes five hours, including a change at Birmingham, but thanks to Passenger Assist it’s fairly painless. If you’re unfamiliar with assisted travel, what happens is that older customers, disabled customers, or others with reduced mobility are met at the station and a member of staff accompanies the passenger to the relevant platform and helps them board the train before finding them a seat.
When changing trains, another member of the team boards the train, helps the passenger off, and takes them to the connecting train. Arriving at their final destination, the passenger is met and escorted to the ticket barrier where someone (friend or family) will be waiting to collect them.
My mother has been using Passenger Assist for several years and it works very well. The staff are extremely helpful and the only hiccup she has encountered so far was when the train she was on developed a fault and everyone had to get off and wait for a replacement train to arrive, which meant she missed her connection.
Thankfully, the Passenger Assist team were on top of the matter and when I went to the station to collect her, and she didn’t arrive on the scheduled train, they were able to locate exactly where she was and what time she would arrive.
To be clear, I’m not a monster so I always offer to drive my mother to and from her home in the north west of England, but she insists that she enjoys travelling by train, describing it as a “little adventure”. (She’s also used Passenger Assist to visit my aunt in Wiltshire, travelling to Bath via Newport in Wales.)
Funnily enough, when she finally took my advice and booked a first class seat (which I thought she would find more comfortable), she found the experience “too quiet” because the coach was almost empty and there was no-one to talk to. That was two years ago and after that she went back to standard class, or whatever they call it these days.
Anyway, for a 95-year-old, her willingness and ability to travel alone is rather impressive. And I’m not saying that because she’s my mother!
See also: Ticket to ride (May 2025)
Below: My mother on Mersea Island in Essex
