Benny Hill
23 May 2019On a tube line.. heading south. Its the deepest tube line and heads south towards Mordor.. yes thats from Lord of the Rings and clearly not true, but it may as well be. Morden was not somewhere you wanted to end up at midnight..
I’d been working late.. or maybe drinking with mates, and we get as far as Tooting Bec, when a drunk gets onboard, and the train continues on its journey.
He’s being harmlessly loud, a large burley chap, singing and ranting. He begins to harass an Indian lady. After a while she’s clearly had enough, and she grabs the Emergency Alarm… noooooo! we’ll never get home now!… only a few stations left to go!
The train comes to a grinding halt, and over the crackly speaker, a voice says “Hello? What seems to be the issue?”.. She replies “I’m being harassed!”.. “Ok, We’ll get help at the next station.”. And the train proceeds to the next station!
Empty.. not a sole on the platform. The doors beep open and there is silence. No one actually wants to get off at this station! We sit.. and wait..
I assume the driver has radioed for assistance, but the person was probably asleep in a far away room. .. we wait.. The drunk guy has now sat down, and fallen asleep. Great!
Finally after what seemed like an eternity, a short Platform Attendant turns up. He asks what has happened, and she points at the sleeping drunk!
The Attendant attempts to wakes the drunk, who swats him away like a fly! Wakes him again.. more swatting.. more waking.. more swatting.. finally the drunk jumps to his feet and shouts “WHAT?”! The drunk is actually quite tall standing over the little Attendant! The Attendant takes a step back, and quietly says “I need you to come with me.” “No” says the drunk, “I want to get home”. The Attendant attempts to lift the back of his arm to coax the man off the train. He’s clearly not allowed to assault the drunk, particularly not in front of the train public! The drunk wriggles away, with his arms tucked t-rex like, similar to a 3yr old attempting to get away from its parent! However the drunk is now standing in front of the door. The Attendant jumps off the train and beckons the drunk to follow him… randomly the door beeps start.. the doors close and the train starts heading to the next station! We watch the Attendant with his confused expression as we pull away.. the drunk waves “Bye Bye!”.. shrugs, and finds himself somewhere to sit!!
The people in the seats around me have all started exchanging glances, and started to bond over the common problem! I’m quite grateful that we’re proceeding. Things have all quietened down, and I need a wee!
We arrive at the next station, and this time we have Police and Platform Attendants! “This just got interesting!”.
The doors open, and two police fetch the drunk onto the platform.. They try to lead him away from the train… beep beep beep.. the door beeps sound, and the Drunk jumps back onto the train. The doors shut behind him.
The train does not leave this time, and we see the Attendant go ask the driver to open the doors.
The Drunk has walked to the next set of doors… beep beep beep.. the doors open. The Police get on at Door A, while the Drunk playfully jumps off the train at Door B… The Police look at us, with an expression “Where d’he go?”. We all point at the other door. The Police jump off the train.. the drunk jumps back on again!
The guy sat opposite, with comic timing, starts playing the Benny-Hill theme tune. This, consequently, eggs-on the drunk. He starts quickly walking between doors, and bizarrely the Police chase him!! Then after another 30secs, clearly the Police catch on to what is happening, and they split. One goes one way, and the other one goes the other!
They catch up with him on the Platform, and are not amused! Cuffs out, they restrain him to the sound of a cheer coming from the train!
The Attendant waves to the driver.. beep beep beep.. doors close.. and we are on our way once more! Next station Home. Thank goodness!!
Moral of that story: The Police have a limited sense of humour!