One-Underground
22 November 2004. Inspired by .
A few years ago, I spent a mercifully (disappointingly) quiet couple of days with the Tube's Emergency Response Unit. In more than 20 hours in each others' company, nothing happened. At one point they got on the road towards an incident, but were then told they wouldn't be needed and so turned back. Apart from that, it was cups of tea, tabloid newspapers, chat, weight-lifting.
The boredom was as revealing as excitement would have been. To give themselves something to do, they took us to their training unit and let us take some photos. And, of course, they shared some of their stories (and their spag bol). For my part, it felt a bit like what I imagine being embedded is like, except that these people were trained in saving lives rather than taking them (and, as long as they didn't do anything silly, their own lives weren't at risk either).
The stories they talked about most, the ones that haunted them of course, were the suicides. The Tube wanted to downplay that aspect in the piece, and to be fair it's not a huge part of their working day, but of course it's the one thing above all else that justifies their higher pay scale. "You never forget your first one," said one of the newer members. "And mine was particularly nasty." The average across the network is one a week, though there's much greater frequency at this time of year.
At some point I'll do something with the unused material I collected that day, but in the meantime, LMG points out that this month's Prospect has a very good article about it from a Tube worker, and the piece is currently not behind the archive paywall so read it while it's available over here. My article's over here by the way, with some excellent photos by the rather talented Mike Abrahams.
There's one part I don't agree with in the Prospect piece though, and that's the line "How the Tube got its reputation as a good spot for suicides is a mystery." Of course it isn't. Anyone who has stood at the platform edge, gazed at the electric lines below, felt aware of people pushing and shoving around them and then been forced back suddenly by the heavy rush of several thousand tons of metal screeching to a halt in front of their nose will have had that dizzy sense of mortality, the same one that comes over you unexpectedly when faced with extreme heights, grinding machinery without guard rails, innocuous-looking live wires. Perhaps, by dint of working on the Tube, Dan Kuper isn't so aware of these moments. But at least 50 depressed Londoners a year certainly are.