By the way, what sort of volunteer work are you doing for LU? Is this
their response to Bob Crow's demand for more staff on stations?

You might have seen the posters around the tube with bullet points on
them. One of those is "additonal staff volunteers." My Mum works in the
TfL offices at 55 Broadway and they sent an eMail round a few weeks
back asking if anyone could put their name onto a list to provide help
where needed, so she put her name on it and I just turn up with her.
Last week we were outside Kings X, handing out service updates and
giving information on alternative journeys, today we were on the
platforms at Hammersmith giving out information, most of the people
seemed to be people changing to the District. One thing that shocked me
though was the DM said "Outside of the peak we don't normally have
anyone on the platforms, even recently," indeed when we went for lunch
and after we left, there was nobody else on the platforms (the DM only
came down for a short while). This quite surprises me, because there
are people changing here all year round coming from Heathrow, and in
light of line closures it is quite important to make that first
impression and provide good journey information, the number of people I
spoke to who were not English would have had any idea how to get to
their destination. In fact, there was one woman who was struggling with
Luggage, couldnt speak English and needed to get to Sheperds Bush H&C,
and the only way to get her to the bus, would be to go with her,
something the gate staff are willing to want to/be able to do.