A grumpy old man rant.
Do not run in the corridor! A serious school rule. I once trotted round a corner and ran into the ample belly of the Latin master, Percy Cushion (aka Persecution) and he smacked me hard round the head. We also had to walk on the left, which was important as we were constantly changing classrooms in breaks. It was extended in those assembly homilies from the headmaster that you do not run in any public indoor space, nor in crowded outdoor locations. It went in one ear and would have gone out of the other ear had it not been red and swollen as a result of Mr Cushion’s vicious attack.
Many decades later, the rule we sneered at suddenly makes sense. Just yesterday in Tesco, I was walking and talking to Karen, about a foot apart, and a man pushed through between us at a trot, shouldering both of us. I said, ‘Excuse me!’ very loudly. He turned, ‘What?’
I said, ‘It’s a supermarket. It’s full of old people and young children. It is rude to walk that fast.’
The reply was in Advanced RP, and extremely ageist to a degree that if it had been racist he would have deserved arrest. He wore the pressed khaki shorts and khaki shirt and had the accent of the highly entitled. As he then sped off at a semi-run, I had to resist the temptation to shout, ‘Stop! Thief!’ and create an embarrassing situation for him (He was running so fast carrying stuff that I thought he was a shoplifter or bag snatcher …).
I see it a lot, people walking at top speed, trotting, almost running, in supermarkets. People let their kids do it. My mum wouldn’t have let me. Worse is when they have the trolley as a chariot in front of them. That was a woman this morning in Waitrose which reminded me of the previous day.
Walking at no more than normal speed in a crowded place is a sensible courtesy. An especially annoying one is on the South Bank in London, packed with people, and joggers push through, flicking their sweat to both sides. They could jog comfortably one road back, or at quiet times, so why do it at 5 pm on Saturday afternoons?
In Waitrose, I could add mobility scooters ridden flat out by very elderly or disabled people. They should be restricted to 8 mph, but turning a supermarket corner sharply at 8 mph could cause serious injury to a small child in the next aisle.
Peter Viney's Blog 
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