Mary Killen Mary Killen

Your Problems Solved | 28 August 2004

Etiquette advice from The Spectator's Miss Manners

issue 28 August 2004

Dear Mary…

Q. Could you help with a problem that regular users of the ‘quiet’ carriages on trains are too often confronted with? How does one get compulsive talkers to shut up and observe the companionable silence which 95 per cent of the carriage’s occupants cherish? Users of mobile phones and personal stereos can legitimately be asked to absent themselves, but it is a moot point whether talking (even continual chatter at top volume) can be treated as a similar offence. On every journey recently we have been afflicted by people who talk for the duration without drawing breath, in voices that carry to the other end of the carriage. How can we persuade them to desist without resorting to violence?
A First Great Western commuter

A. The problem you mention is certainly all too widespread. The offenders are not necessarily yobs.

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