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Little Jack Horner
The very day I became a great uncle, a young man stood up and offered me his seat on the train, and I was shocked. While there may be something to be celebrated in the safe arrival of a new family member, the dark cloud of being treated like a senior citizen on public transport is actually an unwelcome reminder of something else, something that none of us particularly want to acknowledge. Quite frankly, I wish the seat had been occupied by a self-absorbed sullen-faced, gum-chewing young lout; at least I would not have had to be reminded that I am nearer sixty than fifty and that it’s not going to get any better.
Back in the Middle East we were inclined to use reserved seats on public buses because they were set aside for ladies and, fortunately, the husbands of ladies, and we regarded this as something of a perk. But the priority seats on trains and buses in Perth are primarily for the use of the elderly, infirm, pregnant and mothers with small children, and today I looked neither like a mother with small children nor particularly pregnant, and I did not think that I looked infirm. Mind you, I hadn’t for a solitary moment imagined I looked old enough for a young man to get up and relinquish his spot, but there you are, clearly I did, and that is plainly distressing. Not that I hesitated to accept his kind offer, I was pleased enough to be able to travel in comfort.
Transperth, the local public transport operator, clearly wants everyone to travel in comfort; this week they launched a series of nursery rhyme posters aimed at reminding passengers of their obligation to be good citizens. Here’s one:
Mary had her iPod up
as loud as it would go
And every song that Mary played
she thought that we did know
The noise was unrelenting
and it made the people frown
Oh how we wish that Mary
would turn that damn thing down
And another:
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner
Scratching a window pane
He thinks that its funny, it costs us all money
I wish that Jack would grow half a brain
There are more, Humpty Dumpty got on a bus, Humpty Dumpty made a great fuss, Little Miss Shaw sat on the floor and so on; nine in all, produced by Cooch Creative, billed as humorous, tongue-in-cheek nursery rhymes illustrated in the style of a traditional storybook, all aimed at addressing negative behaviour on the city’s buses and trains.
As well as a rhyme, each poster has a message: Everyone has the right to a comfortable journey, please do not sit in the aisles; Everyone deserves the right to a vandalism-free train, and so on.
I looked at these posters and wondered whether the intended targets, the Jack Horners or Mary with her iPod would take the blindest bit of notice and thought it very unlikely. The verses are dull, they lack rhythm and the rhymes are, at best, laboured. In fact, I concluded that the copywriter hadn’t had a good day at the office.
But then again, maybe I am just getting old.