I completely agree that it would be lovely if the railway company (LOROL) were willing to allow people to enter and exit the station for free, possible with the free issuing of a platform ticket from the machine (generally platform tickets cost money - I think about 10p). But without such a policy in place, and I'm not aware of staff radios to communicate across the tracks, the staff member would need to leave their position and accompany the non-passenger across the station, leaving the ticket barrier unmanned for passengers or other people wishing to be accompanied across the railway.

Given the job of the staff is to man the ticket barriers to make sure people can get through, I don't think we should be too harsh on them for not abandoning their posts. What you need is for LOROL to change their procedures to allow passenger to cross over. Contact details for LOROL can be found at http://www.lorol.co.uk/contact-us.html

But perhaps I still misunderstand the Freedom passes as I thought these were automatically given to everybody over 60, and would have enabled a 90 year old lady to cross the railway without any problem and without paying for the platform ticket.