That will teach people who seek a diagnosis of ADHD in the hope that it will bring them various advantages in life. Merlin Entertainments, which runs Alton Towers, has announced that in future it will no longer allow the condition to be used as an excuse to jump its queues. If you want a shortcut, a card saying that you suffer ‘difficulty with crowds’ will no longer cut the mustard with the theme park’s security people. You will have to show that you have a physical condition such as ‘difficulty standing’ and ‘urgent toilet needs’ instead.
Cue the usual outrage whenever someone with disability, or claiming to have one, feels aggrieved. ‘Why shouldn’t my autistic son jump the queue at Alton Towers,’ cries a mother in the Independent. I hate to be the little boy who pointed out that the emperor was in the nuddy, but there is something just a little odd about the idea of using ADHD, autism or some other anxiety disorder to cut queues for you or your children at Alton Towers. Sure, there are people who suffer sensory overload when in crowded situations, but these are queues for rides which will scoop you up, chuck you around and stretch your body like a mediaeval rack. There is no way that anyone with an anxiety disorder should be going anywhere near them.
ADHD has become a somewhat moveable feast
As I have written here before, I have a daughter with severe learning difficulties who suffers extreme anxiety in some situations, it not always being easy to predict when. When she was younger, she used to take to the ground when there was too much going on around her – harmless enough in your own home, but not so much when it is on the ramp to a motorrail train and there are dozens of cars to be loaded. Once, she had to be removed from a cave in France; on another occasion, we only just about got her up the steps to the aeroplane taking us home from an airport in northern Finland, which was served by only one plane from Britain a week.
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But I know one thing: she would far more easily cope with a queue than she would with Oblivion, a rollercoaster at Alton Towers which subjects you to a vertical drop of 180 degrees and then yanks you upwards with G forces of 4.5. She wouldn’t just go into screaming mode – I guess we are all supposed to do that – but it would be extremely dangerous, as she would be trying to wriggle out of her safety harness. I know everyone reacts to stress a little differently, but even so. People with an anxiety condition shouldn’t just be banned from jumping the queue; they should be banned from these kinds of rides altogether.
But then, of course, ADHD has become a somewhat moveable feast – a disability when you want it to be and less of a disability when it suits you. According to NHS Digital, there are 2.5 million people in England alone who have a diagnosis of ADHD, and a further 700,000 who are waiting to be assessed. It has become such a broad spectrum that it has been rendered meaningless – when we all have ADHD, no one really does.
It is little wonder that Alton Towers has come to the conclusion that its existing system of queue management has become unworkable: so many people are claiming the right to jump the queue that there is now a queue of queue-jumpers, too.
What Merlin Entertainments should try next is advertising a new attraction called ‘Queue’ – a thrilling, anxiety-inducing experience which will stretch you to the limit of your physical and mental tolerance. Everyone will suddenly want to try it.
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