We just watched a documentary. It’s a rare thing for me to do because they tend to bore me a little. This one in particular caught my eye, for reasons I will divulge in a moment, and it was entitled ‘Would you save a stranger?’

The premise of the programme was to recount the tales of random acts of violence on members of the public, from the points of view of the victims and the on lookers.

I’m not sure whether I wanted the programme to explain something to me or perhaps restore my faith in humanity a little.

It did neither…

The first tale struck a chord. A crowded bus, a frightened teenage boy and a group of older teens who beat this boy with sticks and belts. The people on the bus did nothing. Not only did they do nothing, but one girl actually put forward her point of view as to what she did and what other people did. They pretended it didn’t happen…and while she perhaps had wanted to act (she was with a group of grown men) the fact that others looked away made her look away too. Once it was all over (the boy ran from the bus being chased by this gang) they made eye contact with one another which she described as ‘an acknowledgement that something had happened, that it was all over and that they forgave one another for doing nothing’. There was no further mention of the boy. He could have been beaten to death for all anyone knows.

The point was, knowing it was wrong she let this boy be beaten because she didn’t want to be the one to stand up.

People like her disgust me.

When I was in school my best friend of the time was in the school band. On her way home from a practice one night she caught the metro with two boys. They were no more than 14. On a well lit metro they were robbed by two much older boys aged 19-20. There were ten other people on the carriage. My friend told me they sat and did nothing. I cried with her when she told me about her ordeal and the months afterwards when she was afraid to travel on her own because if in trouble she believed that no one would help her. i found it so hard to acknowledge that adults on that train would allow her to be unprotected like that.

Several years later I went to college and dated my first real boyfriend. I was still growing into this brash personality I have now and was a little shy. It was ten past five on a rush hour metro when two twenty-something men picked their fight with us. We were teenagers, we were minding our own business and apparently this makes it perfectly acceptable for grown men to hurl abuse at me and make exceptionally lewd comments.

We ignored them and moved further down the carriage because they were not worth our time. No comment was ever made to them.

They followed and attacked. There were probably over 50 people with a good view of the events. My boyfriend who had never uttered a word was beaten to the ground and kicked repeatedly in the face. I was pushed into a corner, had my bag wrenched from me and emptied onto the floor and was then groped and slapped about the face.

A man in the seat next to where I stood caught my eye for a moment and then looked away. There is no feeling in the world like the despair you can feel when you know that the people around you would rather pretend you did not exist than help you. In fact they are probably grateful that it is you and not them.

I am grateful that I am the girl I was back then and that I grew into the woman I am now. I kicked that son of a bitch so hard in the balls he would need a sweeps brush to get them back out of his lungs. Luckily for me we hit the next train stop and the bastard kicking my boyfriend in the face grabbed for his friend and made a run for it. I would not have liked to push my luck and take him on but by God I would have!

Even after the fact people did not rush to our aide. One older teen stepped forward and offered us tissue to stem the blood flow. That was it.

I would like to think that it was shame at their cowardice which kept them in their seats and that a little part of the day haunts the hell out of them. I know it doesn’t.

On the other hand it doesn’t haunt me either.

I can save my self, or if not I can do my best. That being the case, I would not turn away from you on the off chance that you cannot save yourself.

I remember the man who looked at me. I would recognise him in an instant if I saw him again. I may hesitate a moment before helping him….