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My grandparents on my
father's side of the family lived in the
country. Their home was in the village of
Shedfield, near Southampton. Until we had
our first car, the only way to visit was
by bus. Among my earliest memories are some
of the journeys, including changing buses
at Bishop's Waltham in the days when we
still lived in Eastleigh. I also remember
that the buses on local services in Eastleigh
were of an old style with the upstairs gangway
on one side and long seats right across
the rest of the upper deck. The buses we
caught to visit Shedfield were usually of
a newer design and seemed much smoother
and faster. The favourite place to sit was
of course the front seat upstairs where
you could pretend to be driving.
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After our move to Winchester
the buses I caught most often were the local
King Alfred services. Their buses were very
different, not least because they often
had hardboard in the windows instead of
glass. There never seemed to be enough buses
either, squeezing three people to a seat
or standing squashed together were quite
normal. Some of the routes were operated
with single deck vehicles but they all had
conductors. However, with the traffic in
the city centre often at a stand-still,
it was sometimes just as easy to walk home
as take the bus.
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As a child, bus conductors,
like all grown-ups, had always appeared
to be quite old. In some cases they probably
were but by the time I was eighteen I had
noticed that some of them seemed to be about
my age. When I decided to apply to the Post
Office I had thought that working on the
buses might be an alternative if I was turned
down. Like being a postman, I had no real
idea of what the job involved or whether
I was likely to be taken on.
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journey from Romsey Road to the bus station
only took about fifteen minutes. The bus swung
round to pull up at its stand ready to load
up for the next departure. As I got off I
was facing the inspectors' office and without
thinking any more about it, I walked in and
asked if they had any vacancies. |
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| The answer was
'yes'. |
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| The conductor's job was to ensure
that the passengers got on and off safely at each
stop, to tell the driver when it was safe to start
(after checking that it was time to leave), to walk
around the bus collecting fares and issuing tickets,
and to signal the driver when someone wanted to
get off. |
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| Bus work involved working shifts,
sometimes starting early in the morning, sometimes
finishing late at night. When I started, we still
worked six days each week with Saturday afternoon,
Sunday and Bank Holidays paying extra. |
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| In the next few weeks I would find
out more about all of this but for now all that
mattered was that I had a new job. |
