'Jumper' on the Line

Daisy Turnip writes.....

On Wednesday, I had a meeting in London. It was a fairly early start and we finished about 4.30. The team went for a quick drink and then we all set off for our journeys home just before 5.30pm. I was dreading the journey back and just wished I could click my fingers and I’d be back home, sitting on the sofa, watching some rubbish on the TV. Instead, I set off in search of the train station, humping with me my 40ltr rucksack with 'comfort blanket' laptop etc etc.

I reached Victoria station to find it in total chaos, the queues and crowds of people were unbelievable. It turned out that someone had committed suicide by jumping in front of a tube on the Victoria line. I cannot imagine how this person must have felt or what they had experienced that day / week / year to result in the need to end it all in such a very sad and lonely way.

Me being a bit dense about the underground ie I know the route to the office in London and that’s about it., I’d absolutely no idea where to go when an entire section of a line is closed down.

I queued to speak to the underground official who told me the route I needed to take and handed me a map of the underground, ‘just in case’. I set off amongst the hordes to find my way to Marylebone.

Whilst waiting on a crammed platform and feeling pretty scared that if anymore people appeared on the platform, a few more of us will end up on the tracks, a woman to the side of me turned to someone and said, ‘what a miserable, selfish b*****d, fancy doing it in peak commuter time!’ How kind of you I thought. How totally totally selfish of you! I’m sure the family of the dead person would think likewise too.

I can’t help but keep thinking about who the person was and why did s/he end up choosing to end their life in such an awful way?