Met a 94-year-old Thai lady early on last month at Ladbroke Grove Tube station. She had a heavy shopping trolley of food as well as a big plastic bag, so I escorted her all the way home on the Tube to her front door.
To help her out financially and to inject some variety into her life, I've since been showing her how to access free meals, with free food to take home: surplus cooked food from the meals (which would get binned anyway as Health and Safety rules won't let the suppliers store whatever is uneaten), as well as fruit (heavy items like banana and sometimes even a whole pineapple) and veg (potato, carrot), tinned food, etc.
One day, I gave her one of my supermarket hessian bags for carrying all that food home, as it's very sturdy. It is something like 2ft/60cm across and 1ft/45.7cm high, which looks nearly half her size (she's under 5ft / 1.52m tall). The print on the outside is that of sweetcorn (on the cob), so it's bright yellow and very eye-catching.
A few days later, she told me that she started noticing a change in commuter reactions.
Since she acquired this new travel kit, people have been offering her a seat on the Tube much more quickly because of this visibility, thinking she is carrying a big load -- even though it’s empty when she travels alone to these soup kitchen meals. (When it’s full, I'm the one carrying it for her all the way to her station, often to her front door.)
(London, 2026)
PS: In case you're thinking of using the same trick, remember you'll have to look 94 as well...
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