Manners and basic decency

I can't think of any dire bad manners but I had several gentlemen usher me through tube doors first when I came into London (very briefly) for a meeting. It was very bizarre but pleasant! ?

I dont think i do look through rose tinted glasses. i ve always done things like hold doors open for people, both men and women, and it seems that its only in the last few years that so many dont say thanks. i d say its 50/50, which i find pretty shocking really. my favourite one is when i held open a door going into john lewis for a woman and she said huffily "i can open the door MYSELF thank you very much" fark me ?

the only nice one i can think of was when a much older woman said to me "thank you so much - its so rare these days for people to have good manners and you are a real gentleman, your mother must be very proud of you" which was nice, but i couldnt help but think "my mother knows all about some of the things i ve done, and proud is the last thing she is ??

Is it bad that I can't think of any recently? I always hold doors open, or if someone in front is struggling trying to hold the door and get a buggy through I'll go and help. I'm hoping I've taught my children to be polite and hold doors etc as well.

Maybe I just haven't been out enough to see any ?

Oh stacks of the rude people - but as we have an aged population here on the north wales riviera i notice a lot of very rude old people - lots of rude young ones too - but in the context of things being worse it makes me wonder .... or maybe they were really polite before they got old?

what does shock me is how rude children are - i am so amazed by the manners or lack of, the answering back and general sense of their own importance from children that come to play. it is so odd because their parents are perfectly nice polite people.

the table manners and whining about what they will and wont eat is a particular irritation - i am sure they think i am a right old boot ?

nice thing the other day - i was parking and thought i needed to reverse back as there were no spaces - the man behind flashed me - i thought he was being awkward as he wouldnt move back

then a space came free in the prime spot - he came and found me in the shop to say he was really worried i had thought he was forcing me on - but could see the children and knew i would want the space near the door - what a lovely man

To be honest, apart from the obvious not saying thank you when I hold a door open for someone, the only time I can think of is when my husband and I went to a Harvester with one of his friends and their 2 boys. My lord I've never been so embarrassed in all of my life. The boys were rude, running around the place, sitting at people's tables eating food off of their plates! Yes you did read that correctly, eating FOOD off of somebody elses plate! A waitress had to bring the boy back to our table and asked me to keep him under control. His mother was too busy drinking and being a gobshite. The boy then proceeded to take his trousers off and run around the place in his pants. I was mortified, and quickly made excuses to leave. I can still; hear the whispers from the waitresses now ?

I made a point of returning, once everyone else had left and apologising to each of the staff.

It really annoys me when I go out of my way to let pushchairs passed on the path (I have one of my own) and the person I let past (9 times out of 10 in my area) never say thank you. I think this is so rude!

I had a bad one at the weekend.....some woman crashed into me in a shop and automatically I apologised (incase I wasn't looking where I was going). She said "so you should be" so I walked on abit ignoring her. She then kept on about the fact that it was my fault, turned around smacked into someone else and tried to blame then too!

The other weekend...we were in M&S trying to find out if someothing was in the offer. N picked up a gratin thing, this woman who was hovering around the area literally was in his pocket with her hand out as if to grab it from his hands. We held it as we were debating and walked around and she followed us until we put it back, then complained and tutted loudly because it wasn't what she wanted.

(am thinking perhaps these people were abit odd instead of no manners!)

I hope I am not going to get flamed for this...but SOME people with children are not so polite. I had one child who was running away from her mum and went smack into my leg, and then she flew over my leg and fell over pretty hard. I got had a go at for tripping her up fish wife style.

Good ones...when you hold doors open for people with pushchairs/heavy shopping they appreciate it alot.

Oh my goodness, KB3, that sounds mortifying!

My gripes would be the usual- no acknowledgement when I have held a door open or stopping right in front of me on a busy pavement without an apology etc.

On the opposite side of the coin- I struggled to get my car's petrol cap open a long time ago. there was nowhere to go- I was wedged in as it was very busy- and I had no mobile on me. Several people saw me having a fight with my car and carried on their way. One man and his partner (I assume) came to my rescue and even though it took at least 15 minutes to get in the damn thing (it was an Audi, new to me and the cover doesn't open with the central locking is on, which I didn't know and, it seems, neither did they) they helped me the entire time. I was ready to kiss them when we finally got it open. They were ace!

I can only think of occasions when people take for granted what I deem to be good manners. Like when I give up my seat on a bus for someone in more need I rarely get a thank you anymore, same with holding doors open.

I can't think of anything/one thats been really nice recently.

Oh, there was a really nice bloke in the queue for the cash machine on Sunday and he let me go first as I was late for my train.

I think much of it stems from (some) parents not teaching their kids how to behave in social situations. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been in a restaurant and have seen kids sitting at the table playing games consoles. I witnessed one delightful family who let both their kids run around the restaurant getting inder the staff's feet as they were bringing food out, one child decided to go to sleep on the floor, and the other one was saying 'Coke. Now' to the waiter whenever he wanted a drink. The odds are pretty good that in 15 years time these kids will be the ones who slam doors in faces or stroll through without a word of thanks.

Some people with children are rude, some are not. Some people without children are rude, some are not. Nothing to do with being a parent or having a child, imo. The above woman would probably be rude with or without the child.

I was literally speechless last week when a mother pulled her 6 year old son's pants down in the middle of a busy high street and let him piss in the middle of the pavement, not in the gutter, not out of the way but lierally in the middle of the path, like some human urban water feature.

Bad ones: oh so many! One sticks in my mind- a woman was so rude to the sales assistant in WH Smith once that I intervened and said she had a terrible attitude. Of course I got a mouthful of abuse too but I felt better for sticking up for the poor assistant and she thanked me.

Good ones: I use a pushchair on public transport in London and I very rarely have to do steps on my own- I have had people from all walks of life help me, although I'm sure they regret it when they discover my son weighs 2 stone and the pushchair's fairly hefty too. I've had really rough looking hoodies come up to me and help me up or down stairs.

we were in a (decent) pub a couple of years ago and 2 children were running up and down. the pub has a slate floor, and they both had shoes with hard soles, so the clop clop clopping ws really annoying. i asked for the manager and asked him to ask the parents to keep the kids under control as they were disturbing us and other diners. he said "i m sorry, its not our policy to interfere". what?! so i said ok, thats fine, i ll make what i feel is a reasonable deduction from the bill since our meal is being distrubed and he said "fair enough". i was amazed.

i ve been shouted at fishwife-style in a supermarket when i told off some brat for running around the corners at full speed. this women told me to mind my own business, and ultimately, to fuck off ?

I won't take a buggy into London any more. Too many bad experiences - people huffing andpuffing when they have to walk behind me while I try to hoik it up or down two dozen stairs - noone seems to realise that if they helped me, everyone would get where they want to go faster. The people that tend to help are tourists and for some reason, young antipodeans.

I even had one of the station staff at Richmond refuse to help when I asked, because of "health and safety".

My (then) girlfriend and I were eating lunch in a cafe in the Charing Cross Road when the whole area was evacuated because of an IRA bomb (a real one, as it turned out, though it was safely defused). A couple of hours later, when everything had gone back to normal, we popped back in to pay the bill, and they were so astounded that they gave us free tea and cakes.

Which was nice.

Waaaaah, I have just become my very own human office water feature, pmsl.

Oh so many bad ones living where I do, a child was kicking a football of my car repeatedly the other day and I went out and asked him nicely to stop. He said 'what you gonna fucking do?'. Call the police, go tell your parents who only live four doors away?

The one that most annoyed me recently is when I was down in London and on the underground and the escalator was broken and there was no lift, I had to get my laptop bag (which is heavy enough in itself) and my suitcase with a weeks work of clothes down a broken escalator and was really struggling. Instead of offering to help me the guy behind me was tutting and asked if I could hurry it up ?

On the nicer side of things, I was on a flight on Monday and Tuesday and both times a kind man in the seat next to me helped me put my bag up.

I think supermarkets bring out the worst in people. Last week I was looking at the cereal's on offer, trolley tucked out of the way, child by my side, when someone stopped in front of us with their trolley. A lady wanted to get passed, but instead of pushing the trolley out of the way, or asking one of us to move, she stood huffing for a few seconds. I ended up apologising and moved my child out of the way, to mutterings of "...kids getting ion the way..."

Also last week (I can't believe I forgot this) youngest had a friend stay over for her birthday. This child was horrid. She jumped down the last three stairs of our staircase, making a huge thud! Helped herself to drinks out of the fridge, sat in my bed which was out of bounds, and was a general pain in the arse, crying out for attention if we all weren't fussing over her. I lost count of the amount of times I told her off. Horrible horrible child. No thank yous when she left on Sunday either. ?

People are utter pricks. No idea if they always have been or if it's a relatively new thing. I have incidents daily and people think I'm rude for pointing out other people's rudeness! I've had someone elbow me in the head then deny it (wtf?) when I confronted them for not apologising. He got kicked. People regularly try to get on the tube before me when I'm clearly there first. They try to get on the tube before I've got off, race others for seats, not move their bags from seats whilst people are standing around them, not hold doors open, not say thank you for having doors held open, not move umbrellas out of the way .. the list goes on. I've even heard people call others names/insult them for no apparent reason.

I was on a packed tube train the other day, and a heavily pregnant woman got on.

I immediately offered her my seat, as did the bloke next to me - she ended up taking that one, as it was nearest the exit.

We then had a very pleasant chat about how rarely this happens, and I explained that you do tend to get slightly more conscientious about these issues when you've had a disabled girlfriend followed by a wife who's a midwife! (JK once forced me to wear one of those pregnancy simulation things, and it was about three times heavier than I'd anticipated).

For the record, my ex (who has MS and walks with a stick) says that Prague is far and away the best place to be disabled on public transport - on the metro, pretty much everyone in the relevant carriage got up when they saw her, and she was spoilt for choice.

My 'thing' at the moment is drivng and lack orf manners. If I stop and let someone through/out/in/whatever, i hate it when they don't even bother with a nod,hand or flash of the lights. hate hate hate it! I was taught to show thanks by my instructor (after I passed, not during the lessons/test as I would have failed!)

I has to screech to a hault the other night as someone just pulled out to the middle of the road to get accross a busy junction but no thanks, they just gave me a dirty look! On my way home is a nasty corner that is always jammed swith ttraffic, three roads all trying to get onto one road and I always let the bus out or one car. 9 out of 10 don't even say thank you.

On the flip side, I let a white van out the other night and he treated me to a little light show to say thank you! he flashed both indicators, then his hazzards! It made me smile all the say home!

I get in trouble as if someone doesn't say thank you I say it for them. ? Thinks like holding doors/letting them through etc.

My experience is the same - no matter where I go in London with Fred 'n' Bugaboo in tow, people will always help me with the stairs.

We have just returned from holiday & I will say the abuse the airline staff got was an eye opener, when we boarded the lovely shiny male cabin crew man took a sleeping toddler from me & placed him in the seat & let the buggy go in the overhead,1 rather than the usual struggle.

ATG, my husband told me off the other day, it seems I never raise my hand high enough so the drivers who are letting me out don't see. I nod my head or flash my lights now.

Now it's dark as I go home I flash my lights but then usually end up leaving my main beam on and blinding the person I was trying to thank ?

I have to say that when I was pregnant I was always offered a seat on the tube without fail (the only time I wasn't we were wedged in so tightly that I could have lifted my feet off the floor and wouldn't have moved). It was slightly annoying as I had all my cutting quips lined up just in case and never got to use them. Same with breastfeeding in public - I've been spoiling for a fight and noone's been anything other than kind and supportive, damn them ?

I suspect there's an element of rose-tinted glasses. We might remember our childhoods as being the epitome of politeness but I'm willing to bet there were always rude oiks amongst our classmates and their parents.

Our cars have indicators on different sides so I've washed my windows at people before now ? I'm trying to be more forgiving of people not saying thank you when I let them out as sometimes I'm faffing around when someone lets me out and forget to say thanks ?

huh, that's nothing. i was once looking in a shop window and i had a big bag over my shoulder. and a child, about 4-5 years old was stood dead near me and as i turned round my bag knocked her

so i apologised (even though she was standing too near for me to see) as after all she was only little. and her sister,who must have been about 7 or 8 just looked at me and said 'you fucking little bitch.' i was literally ?

i debated going after their parents and saying 'do you know what your daughter just said' but reconsidered, because if that's what the child was like, how rough would the parents have been?

A low point of rudeness when I was 8 months pregnant was being shoved out of the way for a seat by a 10 year old, who's parents just looked fondly on ...

To be honest being pregnant and commuting was a horror - I rarely got offered a seat and usually had to faint before anyone would do anything which didn't tend to get the day off to a good start

On the plus side I've tried to be friendly to the people in my local coffee shop and got a free coffee the other morning which was unnecessary but lovely nonetheless

If somebody doesn't acknowledge/say thanks when I let them out of a junction/round a corner in the car, I sometimes put my window down and shout "you're welcome" and flash a big smile, much to MrD's eternal horror ??

I will always try and help people with bags/buggies, being an ex-buggy user myself and was in Liverpool One one busy Saturday afternoon recently and a lady was struggling down some steps (about 20 of them) and people were just walking past so I just went up, grabbed the footrest and helped her down - not waiting to see if she wanted my help or not ? She did say thank you though, so I suppose I didn't upset her too much. I have done that in the past though and not been thanked but it doesn't mean I'll stop doing it.

With regard to kids in restaurants I'm sometimes shocked but not altogether surprised at what I see and myself and MrD have walked out of places before now, not because of other people's children but because of our own ? They are 5 and 3 and on the rare occasion when they've just been caught at the wrong moment, they're tired, bored or something along those lines, rather than disturbing other people, we've just left. I even walked out of McD's once when they were d*cking about - they were mortified ?

My 13 year old recently got a free ride home on the bus because the bus driver liked the fact that he'd helped a lady who was laden down with bags onto the bus. Made me go all fluffy, much to his annoyance ?

I think there have always been and there will continue to be rude people in this world who just simply don't realise the extent of their rudeness and therefore don't feel the need to modify it. I think we are more aware of it and I'm not sure whether its true or not but maybe its because we just didn't come into contact with as many people "in the olden days" (I'm 38 by the way) as we do now. For me, going into "town" was a big treat and was not a weekly occurrence as it is for some these days - there weren't massive shopping centres/malls where people congregate in great numbers and, until we had a car, we didn't actually venture that far from home very often. Just a thought.

There's something about not being thanked for holding a door open that turns me from miss manners to fishwife in one flowing movement ? If I'm not thanked I loudly shout "You're welcome" after the receding back of the rude person. Makes me feel better! But I suspect it totally cancels out the manners of holding open the door in the first place.

My other rudeness bugbear is rudeness to cyclists. The amount of cars who don't appreciate that in a situation where a car would have right of way, a cyclist would too, like if they are pulling out onto my side of the road to pass a parked car on their side of the road. I ride straight for them, kamikaze style ? praying that my timing won't desert me.

I also have no hesitation in tagging a "please" onto the end of someone's sentence if they haven't bothered to include it. Again, I suspect that this is not the mannerly thing to do...stuff em though.

And I'm still waiting for a thank you card for a gift I sent when my cousin's baby was born in January ?

Some of these are just dreadful.

The lowest point of rudeness ever for me was a couple of years ago when Mr R and I were still together. Mr R was at the lowest point of his illness and looking dreadful, ill, thin and weak. Life goes on however and we were out in town shopping. Both of us were used to the odd comments he would get but on this occasion I saw red when the woman said in a normal tone to her OH 'people like that shouldn't be allowed to live, let allowed out'. Even typing it now makes me full of rage.

I did confront her and am pleased I did - Mr R was mortified that I did though at the time as he said I made more of a fuss than the comment. However, later he did thank me for setting her straight.

I suppose this was ignorance more than rudeness, but even so, I wouldn't dream of ever making that type of comment.

Good though - my lovely next door neighbour is just great. I leave for work most mornings just as he is getting in and when we had frosty starts last week he's already scraped my windscreen for me. Very kind and completely unexpected!