• Name: Robert Haywood
• City: Kingston-upon-Hull
• Country: England
• E-Mail: [email protected]

Journeys by Bus:

Robert Haywood moved to Hull but still has fond memories of many long bus trips to see relatives and spend time in Leicester and Coalville. Robert was himself later to become a bus conductor, and later still a driver, for the Leicester Corporation.

Chapter 1

It seems to have been the mainstay of my life somehow, that in one place or another, at one time or another, I always seem to have been on one bus or another. 

Being a Leicestershire lad, the colours of those buses were mainly of two sorts: The deep crimson of the �Friendly Midland Red�, and the even deeper maroon, and cream, of Leicester Transport.  For the most part of the first eight years of my life in the county, my passenger experience was largely of the former.  Mum and Dad were from Coalville and Coleorton, and so it was that area I first got to know well.  Dad also had relatives in Leicester and so the occasional visit to that city made for a change of scene - and livery. This was a term that I found out, much later, was the correct way to describe the paint job on coachwork; whether on a humble car, a tram, a train, or even a Jumbo jet. But for me, journeys largely meant buses, and every journey was an adventure.

I cannot recall a time when I was NOT aware of the smart serif gold logo of the �M^IDLAND�, and of how the name had larger letters at the beginning and at the end, and with those letters between underscored by a broad, gold band underline.  Equally smart was the City Transport crest, a red five-petal flower on a white shield, with its red lion supporters, and some funny words I didn�t understand, all on the shiny, deep maroon background body colour of the whole bus. I now know the flower is a cinque-foil, and the words are the city�s motto (Semper Eadem) in Latin.  But I knew nothing then of the history behind those colours and logos.  It would be years before I understood the significance of the City Transport, the "Corporation" colours, and the coincidence of the colours of the coaches on the  trains of the LMS.  Or that the Midland Red was properly the "BMMO'�, as it confusingly appeared in all their timetables. But, the "Birmingham & Midland Motor Omnibus Company" was rather a mouthful, for anyone.

The Friendly Midland Red had my vote in those latent days of the mid-1950�s through to the early 60�s; mostly because of the thoughtful notice displayed on the platform, and positioned to catch everyone�s eye just before alighting. Nobody ever "got off" a bus in those days; one �alighted.�  This notice simply asked: �Have You Forgotten Anything ?� The question mark was especially large.  My mother always seemed to think that it was there just for her, to remind her as to whether she had forgotten us, that is, me and my brother.  Well, she did occasionally mislay us. She lost me in Woolly�s in Gallowtree Gate on one occasion!  I shared tea and a biscuit with a very nice police sergeant in a big white building up the top end of Charles Street until, like the piece of lost property I was, I was reclaimed.  That notice on the platform of all the Red buses haunts me still. Leicester Transport buses merely had an official notice warning about the financial peril of spitting on the floor.

Another reason the Midland seemed nicer to us kids was that they were warmer.  And I should think so too, with those nice big folding platform doors.  Leicester Transport buses didn�t have platform doors. They didn�t seem to mind how cold their passengers got, or if they accidentally fell off. For some reason, journeys to and from Coalville, always seem to have been winter ones to my memory. If it was raining or drizzling when leaving St Margaret's, it would be sure to be snowing by Markfield. Of course, I know now that this was because that latter place was so much more higher up, "on the Forest."  Indeed, almost as soon as one left the city, after traversing Sanvey Gate, under those hugely imposing girders of the Great Central railway, across the amusingly named Frog Island (where I never saw a single frog) one seemed to be climbing all the way. The climb commenced at Groby Road/Fosse Road corner, and then Groby Road just went up and up. Then it was up and down all the way to the Field Head - but generally up.  After that, there were still ups and downs all the way to Coalville - but generally down.

Leicester Transport buses seemed to be somehow noisier; whereas, the Midland Red seemed to have a nice, soothing whine to their engines, almost a song-like drone that a little boy could fall asleep to. But I never fell asleep because every journey was an adventure. Not every bus journey was on a Midland Red or the maroon Leicester Transport.  Dad was in the RAF at Grantham for most of the 50�s, and so we invariably travelled to and fro into Leicester on a deep green and cream, odd-looking bus, belonging to another company with a mouthful of a name, the �Lincolnshire Road Car Company.�  An odd name as well, because it was most definitely a bus, not a car.  It would be nearly another twenty years before I knew that the term �car� was a hangover from the days of the tram car.  By, they did have queer buses, and with very odd seating arrangements upstairs.

That up and down, rolling, journey from Grantham into Leicester was another adventure, and probably, to both my parents, a great embarrassment, as my brother and I "drove" that Service 25 all the way, fighting first for the top right seat over the driver.  Imagination made for great steering wheels in those days, and we had one each!  The names of places on that journey now seem to chime on the bells of memory: Harlaxton, Denton, and Croxton Kerrial.  An odd name that, and they never said it properly.  The bus conductor always put on a right posh accent and announced it as �Crowson� Kerrial.  What was wrong with the �x� anyway.  We used to wait a few minutes there, and if we were lucky, we�d see someone drawing water from the huge village pump right by the bus stop. No small pump, that.  It could have filled a railway engine!  I wonder if it�s still there. If you looked back as you climbed away steeply from the village towards Melton, a clear day would reveal the misty silhouette of Belvoir Castle atop its distant hill; the return journey view was even better.

Waltham on the Wolds, and then almost all downhill into Melton Mowbray. A funny county, this place of my heritage. Such long-winded names, and often spelt incorrectly, that is, to an impressionable eight-year-old trying to get to grips with his own language. Melton nearly always seemed to be having a market, which caused no end of extra hold-ups and muttered curses from our Dad. He never liked markets, but I think Mum wouldn�t have minded hopping off (sorry - alighting) for a quick look round.

It was a still a little up and down after Melton, through Kirby Bellars. "Look, there�s another one of those posh, long names." Presently we were down to a more gentle drop into Syston. In winter, and sometimes spring, the whole of the valley down to the right of the road, the A607, would be awash with flood water - an extended River Wreake. Miles and miles of fields, with only tree and hedge tops showing under a pale reflection of a watery sky. It always seemed wet, and damp, about now - �Yes,� my mother would say, �we�re coming into Leicester alright !�

The roads were busy now, many more cars, and lots of lorries and vans. Syston gave way to Thurmaston, and before we knew it, we seemed to be flying down our first real dual-carriageway.  We weren�t used to those in Lincolnshire. �Melton Turn,� shouted the conductor, as we made more and more stops, �Belgrave Road Station,� and finally into St Margaret's, which everyone seemed to insist on calling Sandiacre Street. There, reluctantly, we small boys had to alight, but only to go on another bus. 

Which bus we caught next would depend on which relative we were going to see.  If it were Dad�s relatives in the city to be visited, it would be an often cold and noisy maroon and cream one.  With no doors !  If we were going on to Coalville, to our grandparents, "over �ome," as Mum said, it would be a warm Midland Red; in which case, it was literally off one bus and on to another.  With a bit of luck our bus would be �in,�and we would be left waiting by those long, modern tubular-concrete bus shelters. Draughty, Mum called them.  Huh!  They seemed to be an improvement on everywhere else I�d been, especially those that had NO bus shelters.  Grantham�s was nothing to write home about. You could run about in St Margaret�s shelters; the echo of boyish shouts and laughter was tremendous in those concrete tunnels.

But to go and see Mum�s sister at Newbold Verdon - there�s a posh name again! - we would sometimes have to catch a bus of a much different colour.  Even if the name of the bus was a right contradiction in terms. �Brown�s Blue� - as if it couldn�t seem to make its mind up as to what colour it wanted to be.  But that wasn�t often. Usually, it meant the longest traipse of my young life, right across the city, often at the trot, down to somewhere called "The Newarkes," to catch another Midland Red - near the canal.  And at sometime, I recall Newbold buses leaving from �Western Boulevard,� practically IN the canal.  God help us lads if we missed it. Stupid arrangement, I thought.  They were ALL Midland Red buses, why couldn�t they ALL depart from the same damned place!    

Huh! It was just the same if we were going to Dad�s Grandma�s out at Great Glen.  We practically had to run up Charles Street to Northampton Square.  I used to think I�d run all the way to ruddy Northampton itself!  And I don�t dare guess what it was like for me brother - he were shorter than me - he were only four. 

A funny term that, to "catch" a bus.  But one learnt as one got older, it was entirely appropriate. You did have to catch the damned things, sometimes by stepping out into the road and trying to get hold of it with both arms!  Or so it seemed.  For the unwary intending passenger, an approaching bus took some stopping at times. It never felt as if it stopped willingly. One got the impression that it was something of a chore to stop and pick up passengers. Leicester Transport buses seemed even less willing to stop and to allow one to alight.  For they didn�t always stop - not properly.  One had to be very nimble before that ruddy great bell clanged and it was out of sight!  And you with it - if you weren�t quick.

Sometimes, rarely though, if we had missed the bus to Coalville, or connections were "difficult," it would involve an even longer run, right up Granby Street to the Station. We were going on the train - wonderful !  I never seemed to have time to look at all the posters on that great bridge across the platforms; we always seemed to be running. And those long, wide stairs down to the platforms themselves - absolute murder if one�s Mother had recently bought yet another baby brother, who rode in total luxury in a push-chair.  Being the eldest, and the tallest, I had to carry half of him and his chair, sideways on, with Mum holding on to her bags as well, as we fairly tripped and skipped down to our now moving train.  We were always bloody late!  But the train journey - in contrast to the bus - now that was another treat.  More another time.

But, as often as not, we would be going on to �Co�ville�. So, all aboard the 669, showing Ashby de la Zouch.  By, some of these names are unbelievable.  Do they get any dafter!  All my life, it seems I�ve been a bit of a collector of names, and there�s no better place to see names of all kinds - odd names, queer names, rude names even, than on bus destination blinds. Rude?  No? Then what about GriffyDAM!  That was rude, wasn�t it? And why were they called blinds, anyway?

Having rushed all of the 100 yards from where the Grantham Service 25 dropped us, to where the Ashby 669 (or was there a Coalville 665 ?) departed, we would often sit at least a quarter of an hour atop a freezing cold red double-decker.  Atop, because me and me� brother still wanted to drive, and freezing because the engine had been stopped for at least an hour and that 9the engine) is what made the heaters work.

We were waiting for the driver and conductor to finish their cup of tea.  Just when we all thought we would have to get off and go home to bed, a likely couple would emerge from the central canteen, shaking the drops out of large china mugs.  Shortly we�d feel the bus move and groan on its springs.  The cab door would open, and shut with a hollow bang.  We could hear the conductor remove his ticket machine from his tin box and stow it in some secret cubby hole under the stairs.  At last, movement! .... are we going?  The engine coughs, and starts.  Another moment, a shout perhaps to a late passenger.  Then ....  burp-burp goes the buzzer.  We hear the doors whine shut.  The bus clunks into gear with a little jolt, and we start to move.  Hurray!  At last - we�re off.

Sanvey Gate, Northgates, Frog Island, out through the traffic and m�l�e towards the massive Groby Road junction.  How did  the driver know which way to go to get there?  Up, up, up Groby Road, past the Fever Hospital and then Gilroes. Conveniently placed for a cemetery I always thought, that is, after Mum explained just what the Fever Hospital was for. The engine and gearbox would whine and grind it�s way slowly - it always seemed to be slowly - up yet another hill. 

First Groby, then, colder and colder, we approach Markfield and the Field Head. The windows would be well steamed up by now. Make a circle with your elbow. The bus lurches into the lay-by, and the doors open to drop someone off. There�s a sudden temperature drop at the front upstairs. And we wait - wait for about 5 minutes.  Brrr!! Then on to The Flying Horse - another pub.  And we wait again.  �That�s what we could do with,� opines Mum, looking at the name over the pub, �t�d be quicker than this bus!� The great mass of Bardon Hill looms in the mist on the right, with its huge radio masts on top, and if we were lucky, we�d get caught at the railway crossing just down from another pub, �The Green Trees� or something like that.  Held up again, by dozens of wagons that went on forever, trundling out of Bardon Quarry loaded with fresh stone. Me and my brother would drive everyone else upstairs totally nuts as we counted them.  Mum always told us that we�d come by there one day, and Bardon Hill would be gone.  

Speeding up now, we�d glide down Bardon Road and into Coalville to drop off (whoops! I mean, alight) just inside Ashby Road opposite the Clock Tower in Memorial Square. We would alight there only if we were going to Mum�s family down Highfield Street.  But if we were going to Dad�s family first, we�d stay aboard and go on to Coleorton Cross Roads.  If we were really lucky, our bus would be a slightly different number, and go a different way. Right down Coleorton Moor itself to where we really wanted to be: dropped off near the Angel Inn - but only "by request" - if you please.

If we were bound for Highfield Street and Grandad Holt, once again, time was of the essence. Time for another mad dash with push-chair and brothers and bags n� all. This time to rocket down Belvoir Street to Marlborough Square to catch a single-deck bus for Standard Hill - another Midland Red.  "Catch" being the operative word here.  If we missed it, it could be because we�d been caught at yet another railway crossing. This time it was the spur that led from the main Leicester to Coalville line down into the depths of Snibby Pit; but, as often as not, the crossing gates on Belvoir Street would be open to us and to traffic, even if there was a great big snivelling, steaming monster waiting just beyond the gates to pull a long train of coal wagons away to the boilers of the world.  �Er, is it coming to get me, Mum?� I�d say, pausing a moment in self-inflicted terror and wonder.

�Stop sodding about, an� �urry up! or we�ll miss another ruddy bus!� would be my mother's answer, as my arm would be almost wrenched out my shoulder. But we usually missed it, and had to walk.  Woe betide Grandma if she hadn�t got the kettle on by the time we rounded the bend in Highfield Street up by the Co-op.  It was usually gone tea-time - and raining.  I always used to wonder why women in those days used to soak their feet when they were already wet.

To go on to Coleorton would involve two more small parts of our adventure.  First, we would have to pass the Midland Red Bus Depot, just down Ashby Road.  It seemed there were nearly as many buses in there as there were in Sandiacre Street in Leicester.  Some of them were right old bangers 'n� all.  occasionally we might see one actually being washed, but usually they were all asleep. Then, we�d pass the Pit, Snibston Pit,, "Snibby." If we were lucky, we�d see the pithead wheels turning.  Sometimes, there�d be dozens and dozens of grimy-faced miners pouring out the pit gates, and across the busy road.   

I never knew, until only last year, what all these men were actually going. An elderly uncle recently enshrined the scene in verse, and explained to me how the men had actually had to pay for the building of the pit-head baths themselves - out of their own wages.  Also, how the Coal Board had been too mean to grant the land within the pit premises; as a result, making it necessary for the several-times-daily mad dash across Ashby Road to get a little clean for going home.

Snibston Colliery

(Coalville, Leicestershire)

Brief wraithes of steam unfurl pale arms, with fingers, unsubstantial, fey, grope dark discoloured walls before evaporating all away.

Twin contra-turning pulley wheels, their spokes in stroboscopic race, disclose the vertical approach of colliers from their working place.

Hauled swiftly from the caverned streets of a sprawling subterranean wen, they dash across the Ashby Road In little knots of shabby men.

Torn, shapeless trousers, knee-pad girt, a No-So patch unsullied yet, coal-blackened faces zebra-striped from dried-up river-beds of sweat.

Honed through the adolescent years, from male exclusiveness distilled, come ribaldry and cutting wit as requiems for stints fulfilled.

As colliers make this brief traverse, their banter's often overheard, but some will cross the road and make the pithead baths without a word.

Garrulous or taciturn, they hasten to the shower jet, to be reborn beneath the flow, and cleanse the skin of grime and sweat.

But cleansing showers and draughts of air, inhaled above the terrestrial crust, could not begin to purify, nor ever cleanse the lungs of dust.

D. Russell Haywood. 1998  

Chapter 2

After passing the pit, the bus would grind up the hill to the roundabout at Ravenstone Cross Roads, then tumbled down the white-chain-fenced road through Swannington, passing rows of terraced cottages that had been there since Adam was a lad. For Swannington is far older than Coalville, and history students will recall that it was the terminus of the first commercial railway in England. Turning left at the roundabout at Pegs Green (and so just missing the rudely-named GriffyDAM) would quickly bring us down to the deadly Coleorton Crossroads.  Deadly, because the crossroads on the main A512 Loughborough to Ashby road were hidden in a tree-lined hollow.  I wouldn�t like to guess how many people lost their lives down there before that junction was "improved." 

The final part of our long journey would be the short trudge up the Moor, past the Angel, and so to Grandad Haywood�s cottage with the biggest chimney stack in the village.  Three buses, several hours, and 41 miles, had brought us back to our roots.  And they called it "going on holiday!"   Dad said "it weren�t worth doing the journey at all if you didn�t stay for at least a fortnight!"  They say that now about going abroad  to the Med, or the Far East. 

Alas, it�s all gone now. Grandads and Grandmas, and Mums and Dads, have all passed on.  I do some of those journeys now with my wife, in a car, just for nostalgia�s sake.  The one from Grantham into Leicester is much quicker these days, at least it is until the last bit down Belgrave Road.  And the hills don�t seem so big. St Margaret's has changed beyond recognition, with the "new" Burleys Way inner ring road of the 1960�s thundering past, and even more so recently with its newer covered bus station - all red paint and glass.  The trains of the Great Central have long gone, as has the girder bridge that carried it over Northgate Street. The Fever Hospital, aka Groby Road Isolation Hospital, has long closed.  We don't need isolating like that any more when we�re ill. I used to think it was as a punishment for catching something nasty. 

A by-pass takes the main road past both Groby and Markfied, and an even bigger one takes the through traffic past Coalville itself.  Even the good old A50 isn�t that any more, now renumbered as the A511. Of course, "Snibby Pit" has closed, along with Whitwick and South Leicester pits (that latter located at Ellistown). All three of these were interlinked by the late 1960�s by over 70 miles of underground roadways.  The uncle who penned the poem worked for a while at Snibby, and says you could walk for hours down there, and not meet a soul. He didn�t work "down pit" for long, so he still has his own lungs and can breathe without whistling - seventy or no seventy. "Snibby" is now a fitting museum to the county�s industrial history, and the Pit-Head Tour itself is a revelation. The heavy price of coal is still being paid for - dearly. The Leicester to Coalville and Ashby branch line suffered closure under the Beeching cuts of the early 60�s, and Coalville Station was eventually demolished, along with the old signal box and overhead footbridge at the side of Leicester Road.

But the Clock Towers are still there, in both Leicester and Coalville, and in good shape. The former to celebrate the upstanding and good of medieval and Tudor Leicester; the latter to commemorate the fallen and brave of Coalville in the 20th century.  By, those clocks weren�t half useful for catching buses. If we had time to spare between buses, rarely so, we never missed the opportunity to go and see Uncle Jack�s name engraved along with the rest of the dead of World War II. Marlborough Square is still there and roughly the same shape - an oblong car park. As is the Methodist chapel where Mum and Dad were married, and the building of the Ritz Cinema where they courted still stands, although desolate. Clutsom & Kemp�s factory down Highfield Street, where Mum worked as a girl in the last years of the war making webbing for the forces, long gave way to Cascelloids, then to Pallitoy, then closed. It now is struggling to provide "small business units."

Some things improve though: A recent visit shows that the old Manor House at Donnington le Heath, just round the corner really from Highfield Street and Standard Hill, has been beautifully restored, and is well worth a visit to see a superb example of domestic living in medieval Leicestershire - long before coalfields, grime, soot and slagheaps. Buses no longer criss-cross and circle Leicester�s Clock Tower, the whole area is now pedestrianised for mad teenage cyclists. Timothy Whites & Taylors, the chemists, long gave way to Boots, but for me, the saddest loss, or disappearance, of all, was the huge, neon-illuminated �B-O-V-R-I-L� sign that flashed on and off in a big curve over Timothy Whites. It can still be seen on old photos of the Clock Tower, looking down from near Marshalls & Snelgroves.  It lit up, one letter at a time, went dark, and then the whole word came on in a blaze of orangy-red light.  

Returning to St Margaret's from a visit to another Grandma, down Grasmere Street, and having �alighted� from a Leicester Corporation Aylestone Road bus in Horsefair Street, that walk back along Gallowtree Gate to the Clock Tower and Churchgate was pure magic to an eight year old, even if it was a bit of a trudge on a cold, wet night. Better than Christmas lights. All the shop windows were lit up after dark, without blinds or steel shutters; no fear of being ram-raided then. If there was time to kill between buses, on rare occasions, then a slow amble and a bit of window shopping in Marshall & Snelgroves always pleased Mum. Dad wasn�t so keen, though. He�d always rather sit and freeze on top of a cold bus for twenty minutes than look in a few shop windows. Mum always saw something desirable that he couldn�t afford.

By, we did walk some miles between buses in those days; everything was so far apart. Good job the city centre was relatively flat. Transport, and its links in Leicester always was a nightmare, but I suppose, much worse for Mums and Dads, and short-arsed brothers. One of the reasons for that nightmare was the fact that Leicester, in the 1950�s, didn�t, and couldn�t, have a proper and decent ring road. That was largely because of the great number of low railway bridges around the city. The problem wasn�t cured until long after I left, and even now, the "ring" isn�t really a complete circle of dual-carriageway. Perhaps the romantic low bridges of Leicester could be the subject of a future reverie about Transport in and around the city.

• Name: Robert Haywood
• City: Kingston-upon-Hull
• Country: England
• E-Mail: [email protected]

On the Buses

Chapter 1

A Temporary Job

I have always counted myself a very fortunate chap. Fortunate in that my career as a busman, such as it was, started at a time when it may be said that we were just seeing the last glowing embers of a dying age. That sounds as if it were long, long ago, and almost pompous. But it was not so long ago, even if it was in the last century, and perhaps it is a little bit pompous. Nonetheless, it�s the truth.

The dying age of which I was a first-hand witness was that of the principle of mass public transport affordable for all. The hey-day of the bus conductor was all but numbered.  Bus design would soon be turned on its head giving a whole new look.  I learnt my trade on buses that had the engine in the proper place - at the front!  In the mid to late 1960�s, there were still plenty of staff in all industries who had served in the forces during the war.  Men who had fought and suffered, who had known and given out discipline, who still had pride in whatever they did. The public were still basically a decent, honest folk, the majority of which, would no sooner diddle a corporation bus conductor, or the corporation, than fly in the air.  Traffic was getting worse, and in some cities, almost at a strangle-hold.  But new technology was coming through to win the battle against the motor-car and the even newer battles against the vandal and late-night trouble causer. 

In general, there was an air of quiet optimism, which now in retrospect, we can see was greatly misplaced. The comfortable and seemingly secure industry that I came to know so well was, not so many years later, to undergo a shake-up that can now only be described as wholesale rape. A strong and emotive phrase to use, but when one thinks of the countless people who have been hurt, financially and socially, by that industry�s sole concern with short-term profit, one I feel justified in using. But I was never known for holding back in my condemnation of the dismantling of an essential public service that still had so much to give.

I suppose it could be said that buses were �in my blood,� almost a psuedogenetic sort of inheritance that I was in some way predestined for.  But such an idea only now occurs in retrospect, that wistful act of looking back and wondering at what might have been. If buses seemed to be �in my blood,� then so also was coal-mining.  So why didn�t I become a miner? A lot of what I know now, I didn�t know then, back in the mid-sixties, as a lanky youth, just out of school with only one aim in life. I knew that one Grandparent had been a miner, but it would be nearly thirty years before I discovered that that was also true of my other Grandparent. And the family pedigree for transport, if it can be called that, was in fact rooted in trams, and not buses. 

Curiously, I did not become even remotely interested in trams for a long, long while, again, almost thirty years and long after they were consigned to the museum and historic postcards. I did have an uncle who was a conductor on the Midland Red at Coalville, and as a small boy, I had even lived in a bus for a while.  Albeit a magnificent six-wheel trolleybus - ex-Bradford, I think. This bus was my home for a couple of years during my father�s time in the RAF. Married quarters were in short supply in the early 50�s, and some personnel were allowed to buy their own caravan, which the RAF would �site� on a camp, all connected to the mains.  My dad simply bought this old green trolleybus, and converted it.  I recall it being fun to live in, and comfortable.

So, if it was my destiny to become a busman, how was it that it all occurred purely by accident, almost on a whim? I was very given to whims in those days. My one aim in life was the result of another whim: to be a sailor. Not just any sailor; not a merchant sailor or any old tar, but a Royal Navy sailor. I had set my heart on going to sea, on joining the Royal Navy, since the age of about 12 or 13. Buses could not have been further from my thoughts. How it could come about that I could fail the medical for the Royal Navy on account of having had Rheumatic Fever (and consequently a dicky heart) at age 11, yet later pass a medical to drive a bus full of 80 trusting Leicester passengers, is beyond me. But I did.  They must have been desperate.

For those not familiar with those times, the mid to late sixties in the English Midlands were a time of plenty for most people. Jobs were so abundant that there was simply no excuse not to work. Since starting work as a shoe salesman in the Coalville Co-op, I had had no less than 10 jobs, not counting the last one which didn�t count. Youngsters like me simply walked from one job to another, as if we were changing shirts, with an ease and aplomb that today�s youth may find hard to credit. The Midland's dole queues were made up largely of a mixture of people who couldn�t work, because of some illness or disability, and those who simply would not work for any one for any number of reasons.  

It was different, of course, in other parts of the country, but this was definitely not the case in my native Leicester and Coalville. A young fit lad like me had no excuse, non at all, not to work. Had there been one, I�d have found it. All you needed was a late edition of the Leicester Mercury, and the world was your oyster. Jobs galore, in almost every industry. Boot and Shoe manufacture and retailing, knitwear and hosiery, printing, machine tools, heavy and light engineering of every sort. Just about every bloody thing except shipbuilding and deep-sea fishing! And yes, if you wanted to travel just 10 or 12 miles out of Leicester, there was mining too, and just at a time when that industry was getting both safer and very hi-tech.

So what with trams in the family past, and buses in the family present, Dad was keen that I didn�t get any more involved with buses than with mining. So I went to work for the Co-op selling shoes instead. Not much of an improvement, but at least it was clean. And so buses were put out of my mind. From the Coalville Co-op to Leicester Co-op, to Timpsons, to Marshalls & Snelgroves and Lewis�, to Simpkin & James, I nurtured some dream of pursuing a career in shop management. All these jobs were found in the pages of the Leicester Mercury, including the one as a photographer�s assistant that turned out to be a total two-week con. And so, finding myself out of work one day, and ambling dejectedly in the direction of the Dole Office one October morning, it was in Humberstone Gate that I espied the faded notice in the little front-office window of Leicester City Transport:  �Conductors Wanted.�  Faded because it had been there a long time because conductors were always wanted; the pay and conditions were so poor that staff were traditionally hard to come by in the first place, and even harder to keep in the second. Having just turned 18 eight weeks previously, with no idea of the real pitfalls of the job, and a fondness for buses, in I went. Like a lamb to the slaughter! Well, it was only going to be a temporary job. Just till something else turned up. Isn�t that how we all started?

 Chapter 2

Conductors School 

What really made me walk through the City Transport�s Humberstone Gate front office door on that sunny day in October of 1968, I�ve often tried to recall. Memory is often more driven by retrospect, and coloured by the ensuing experience, than by pure recall - and so it may be in this case. But I do vaguely remember the feeling of being such an utter bloody idiot to have given up a perfectly good job in a shop (where indeed my future wife still worked) for a spurious job that had turned out to be a con. In addition, one which would certainly result in the inevitable tongue-lashing from my mother the moment I walked in the house; just turned 18, and designated as �unemployed.� I had to get a job, and quick. I dare not go home without one. Besides, I actually fancied working on the buses. I had a hazy idea that it would involve shifts, but didn�t really know what this would entail back then. So the simple answer to the question, why? . .  simply because I just happened to be walking past.

The uniformed Inspector behind the enquiry desk looked for all the world as bus inspectors did in those days - like a policeman. He directed me upstairs to where I would fill out an application form and sit a small �test� of writing and adding up. To my surprise, knowing my dislike of the latter, I passed.  Having ascertained that I was available for an almost immediate start, I was given clear instructions, to report to the Leicester City Transport conducting school at the Abbey Park Road Depot the following Monday at 9 a.m. sharp.   

The day in question was Trafalgar Day, a historic day for a lad keen on the Navy, the 21st October. And a historic day for me. I crossed the city from Saffron Lane, and arrived at Abbey Park Road, having paid my fare on a Corporation bus for the last time, breathless, at 9.15 a.m.  Fifteen minutes late, the class had already started, and this bad omen seemed to plague the rest of my time on buses, until I acquired a really reliable alarm clock, known as a wife!   Getting up of a morning had never been my strong point, and now there would be times when it would be a real bind.  

Many members of the public in those days held a common belief about people �in the public eye� type of jobs (such as milkmen and busmen) that they were all cheerful, early risers who just threw themselves into their work at the crack of dawn or the rising of the lark. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was neither a natural early riser, nor all that cheerful much before lunchtime. In these times, the days of the conductors seem so long ago. It has become fashionable to bemoan their passing with the assumption that all were efficient, cheerful and honest collectors of the corporation�s dues; always with a joke, and a ready arm to collect up some struggling young mother and her waifs from the pavement.  I think I was honest, I hope I was mostly cheerful, but as for cheerful early rising and much of the rest, I was to turn out to be less than average, and a lot less than perfect.  There would be many times when my feelings for the job were more of a love-hate relationship.

The training school inspector was an Inspector Johnson; one of the old school of professional busmen who knew his job thoroughly and taught it thoroughly. No stone was left unturned, no rule of the road, or of the Passenger Transport Act of 1932, was left uncovered. This is what I meant in my opening when I said that I was fortunate to have caught the last of the old days. Of course, I didn�t realise this fact then. The likes of me had yet to learn the job before we could be any judge of how much it would change in the future, or what indeed constituted �the old days.� I refrain from referring to them as the �good� old days. The shifts were longer, the pay poorer, and the buses a darned sight colder, but people seemed to have been happier. Inspector Johnson left us all in no doubt that this was an honourable and skilful job, done right, and could be justifiably considered a career for those who wanted to make it so. Contrary to what today�s bus companies would have you believe, they can�t afford to give training like that anymore!  And it�s my belief that the same can be said of the rail industry.

It was like joining the army. This impression was the more imprinted on all of us when we were taken - later the same day, and after the usual formalities of filling in varying forms for this and that - down to the basement stores. Here, we were each kitted out with our uniforms, including the little chrome, lapel numerals that designated our �conductor number.� These were similar to the old police force �dog-collar numerals,� and by these, we would all henceforth be known. And of course, the part of any uniform that adds the final touch and denotes servitude, the peaked cap. The uniform as a whole was a black tunic and trousers, with silver �staybright� buttons, and the black peaked cap on which was the full crest of the city in silver with its red shield. All to be worn with a suitably dark tie and white shirt and collar. The black tunic, with its two breast pockets, reinforced the military look about it. At a distance, it would be easy to mistake a tall well-built, bus conductor for a policeman. An illusion of officialdom - in reality.

Of course, the smart outfit smacked of the armed services, from which bus operators had traditionally taken many of their staff. This was the way they liked it; military trained people were reliable, punctual, and used to discipline. In the days between the wars and into the late 50�s, there had been National Service. This had only been ended some ten years when I started on buses, and a surprising number of staff had military backgrounds. The most dedicated amongst them gained promotion to Inspectors. Many of the older staff were just coming up for retirement having joined the buses in 1945/6 following �demob� after the war. So, I was now Conductor No 12, a surprisingly low number, considering some of the others were in the four and five hundreds. All conductors were even numbers, all drivers odds. I seemed to be in exalted company. Everything in the whole setup seemed to be meticulously worked out to the last detail. I was suitably impressed. In truth, had I but known it, the whole job was already going to the dogs. Some would say it started the day I joined.

We spent the next several days in the upstairs classroom of the conducting school, about a dozen or so of us altogether. Tickets, the machines that issued them, waybills, cash handling and paying in, overtime slips, how to read a timetable or a running board, the 1932 Passenger Transport Act in its entirety; all became familiar in very short order. And, above all else, a huge emphasis on safety; first for our passengers, and then for ourselves. In another set of nearby rooms off the same corridor was the driving school. Both schools overlooked the depot yard at the front of the mighty bus garage which nightly held hundreds of vehicles, and all just facing the main gates to Abbey Park. On the left, as one entered these exalted premises, was the smart, two-tier block of 1920�s offices. Done in a style and grandeur that befitted the Head Office of a proud Corporation Transport Service; one whose pedigree went back to before the turn of the century, and said all there was to be said about civic pride.  

Any town or city that had such a service, its own fleet of public vehicles, painted in its own corporation livery and sporting the corporation coat-of-arms, showed them off with great pride. Such bus operations, provided purely by city and borough councils, were known by the rather funereal descriptive noun of �undertakings.�  Thus the City of Leicester could be said to have its own transport undertaking. These were distinct from the privately operated companies, big or small, who operated solely to make a profit. It was considered unseemly, and I think in fact illegal, for a local authority to own a private profit-making company in the full sense of the word. But a transport undertaking�s prime reason to exist was not to make a profit, but to provide a service to the ratepayers. Of course, they strived to at least cover their costs, but should profits be made, these were returned to council coffers to help lower the general rate charged to its citizens.   

In the heady days immediately after the Second War, public transport usage all over the country reached its highest peak, and most corporation bus services returned a healthy profit to the general rate fund. By the sixties and seventies, car ownership, TVs, and other home entertainment, saw most undertakings losing vast amounts of money, and therefore being subsidised out of the general rate precept, as it was called. The other advantage of such an organisation was that it could never go bust, that is, unless the town council itself went bust, and there were many who considered that no government would ever allow that to happen.

A corporation bus was in the vanguard of the public eye, a daily and constant reminder to citizens of how well, or how badly, their rates were being spent, the General Manager�s name in small legal lettering on the nearside lower panel of every bus showing just who to write to if there was even a glimmer of a cause for complaint. The name of Mr. L. H. Smith was thus subconsciously known to thousands of adults and children alike all over the city, as well as permanently fixed upon the minds of all staff. I don�t think I ever met him personally, unless he happened to board my bus on occasion and show me the gorgeously enameled City Crest on the key fob that he, the Lord Mayor, and all city councilors had, in order to gain free travel on the bus service they had responsibility for. I certainly wouldn�t have known our Manager by sight.

Our Corporation colours were a rich maroon and cream. Smart and classy when freshly painted, as on a new bus, but after a year or two, a dirty brown and off-white. Many other towns had similar colours, such as Edinburgh, and Salford. I later realised that these were also the colours, or livery as a colour scheme was called, of the old London and North Eastern Railway, the LNER, on which the City of Leicester sat neatly astride. Their carriages were of the same maroon with windows picked out in a smart cream.

In order to try and brighten the image of the town in the brave new world of the early 1960�s, and to shake off the dreary past of the defunct tram system and the war years, Leicester�s colours had been totally reversed, to mostly the rich cream, with two maroon bands, one each around the bottom of each set of windows. There had once been three, but the topmost band had recently been dropped, thus making each bus seem all the more modern in appearance - even if it was a clapped out 1947 model. Thus was the general appearance of the fleet when I joined the service.

Inspector Johnson was a brilliant man, and a most able teacher. He knew which of each class would make the grade, which were serious about the job, and which were just mucking about. He seemed to take to me. He endeared himself to me on the first day - on hearing my name - by asking if I had any relatives previously on Leicester buses.  He remembered my Great-Grandfather with affection and respect. But, it seems, not so his son, of which he said nothing more to me. My Grandfather had stirred things somewhat with his extreme political views, and brought shame on the family. But Inspector Johnson just gave this feeling that he thought that I would make a busman, and so in due course, after the two week�s training, we all passed out of the school to be allocated our first duties on the road. And by God, were we keen to get started! So much so that I would have done those first few days for nothing, but we were also getting paid.  The incredible sum to me of  �12-something. On passing out and being fully fledged, this would rise to over �14.

We learnt all about our Ultimate Ticket Machines, bells and stopping procedures; had waybills, paying-in slips, fares and stages up to the eyeballs; been thrown up the length of the training bus in numerous emergency stops just to see what it feels like for the poor bloody passenger. The latter was really as much a training exercise for new drivers to learn to make a controlled emergency stop; it was done just prior to taking their test. With most of the fleet out during the day and the garage nearly empty, the driver-training vehicle would be driven by luckless trainees round and round, into the garage by one opening and out through another and back in again, right foot hovering near the brake pedal. Watchful for just the moment when a hidden driving instructor would throw out from around a corner, a shabbily dressed and very floppy shop dummy, attired in an old �demob� suit and hat, and through it right in front of the bus to make it stop.  And by heck, stop we did.  Woe betide any driver that ran over that dummy! This type of training was considered useful to tie in with the conducting side of things as well: 

When the driving instructors signaled that they were ready, the whole conducting class would troop out of the school, down the stairs to the yard to board the training vehicle. We were not all allowed to sit, but eight of us stood in the aisle, shoulder to shoulder to simulate a standing load of passengers going home after a hard days work. We gained �hands on� experience before the phrase had ever been invented, by finding ourselves writhing about on the floor with our heavy ticket machines curled around our necks one way, and our leather cashbags curled around our necks the other. We were, in effect, being given our first sea-legs.

We learnt to stand on the platform and slightly bend our knees, thus absorbing road shocks and allowing us to neatly fill in our waybills as the bus went along. This was to the amazement of both old ladies and small boys alike. Most new conductors naturally wanted a brand-new cash-bag. Who wanted someone else's left-offs?  But if Inspector Johnson�s advice were to be taken, then plump for an old and battered one. It was easier on the shoulders with the straps already supple and bedded in, and it didn�t wreck your shoulders, or take the skin off the back of one�s knuckles for the first few months, as you rooted about in the rock-hard bag for those elusive tanners and thre�penny bits. Luckily, on that occasion, I took his advice. Other conductors either gave it up after a couple of weeks, or could be heard at home into the wee small hours, pounding their unforgiving fresh cowhide bags into submission with a heavy hammer.  But a year or two later, my own bag went defunct when the stitching gave way.  I had no choice this time - like it or not - I got a new one.  

 Chapter 3

On the Road 

And then the great day came; we were to be let loose on the unsuspecting public in the city. Well, not quite loose,  as we would each have a guiding hand in the form of a training conductor. We being allocated to the hapless man�s shift, a different one each day, to iron us out for our first week on the road. My training conductor was a mild-mannered man called Bert, an old sweat, and why he or anyone would volunteer to take on the hassles of teaching someone else the job, when it is far easier to just get on with it oneself, could only be guessed at. It wasn�t for the pay - they were not paid for this. I naturally made all the right mistakes in all the right places, but Bert soon put me to rights.  

My very first service was on a 24 Saffron Lane, home territory to me; I was then still living with Mum on Saffron Lane Estate, just off Windley Road. I had started at about 9 o-clock. I had done two or three runs back and forth, from the terminus behind the Town Hall in Bowling Green Street, to Southfields Library, when it came to nearly dinner-time. Imagine my pleasure, my pride, my intense gratification mingled liberally with embarrassment, when who should jump aboard to go home for her lunch but my girlfriend from Simpkins & James. She sat on the long seat at the back and gave me her sixpence, then I, under Bert�s watchful eye, gave her a ticket . . for 6d.  Fares were such then that even a poorly paid shop girl could afford to go home for her lunch!  I only learnt recently that she, long since now my wife, has that ticket still, tucked away in an old tobacco tin along with other mementos like cinema and theatre tickets. Old softies like us did that sort of thing then.

So now I was �on the road,� albeit still training.   Whenever a busman leaves the depot or canteen to go and do a shift, or even just one run, he was said to be on the road. I was able to put into practice all that I had learnt, or most of it. There were many things we were warned against, such as smoking on the platform, or worse, smoking inside the bus. I was a heavy smoker then, twenty a day anyway, as well as, would you believe, a pipe! Then there was sitting inside the bus, on the long back seat, to ring the bell when starting from a stop; a heinous crime with grave implications for safety, the safety of intending passengers. And of course, being found to be keeping two waybills,   well this was one of the commonest forms of �fiddling the bag.� One waybill for the inspector to inspect when he unexpectedly climbed aboard, and one for oneself showing actual ticket sales, and just how much to pinch out of the bag before cashing up at the end of the day. If a conductor made a mistake when writing on his waybill, his record of each journey and all tickets sold and total value thereof, he must neatly cross it out and enter the correct figures. On no account was he to start a new waybill, whatever mess the original one was in. If the original waybill was irredeemably damaged, it must be returned along with the new one. A sackable offence, on the spot, to keep two waybills.

And so we quickly learnt the four deadly sins of a bus conductor. In ascending order of seriousness according to LCT scripture: smoking on the platform, being late for duty and missing a shift plus not letting them know by ringing in, dragging a passenger who had caught your bus and wouldn�t let go of it, and, top of the bill, two waybills or anything that smacked of fiddling the public purse.   We were the lowest form of civil servants, in fact, �public servants,� and reminded of it every day by some sour ratepayer or lemon face who had just missed the previous bus or thought the fares too high. Admittedly, many bus staff were unsuited to the job, and shouldn�t have been let anywhere near a bus or the paying public. But I felt I was admirably suited to it, and liked to do my job well, and took grave exception to any criticism of either myself or the service. In short, I would argue with them; another sin, arguing with a customer when they are always right.  Even when they are wrong. See!  I still can�t help it.

Being on the alert when ringing the bus off was just one part of the extensive platform procedure inscribed on the minds of all conductors and drivers, for it affected them too. It came as a shock to learn that the conductor was always in charge of the bus; anything major went wrong, and it was the �dukky�s� head that was on the block. He must always have a clear view of the platform when starting his driver from a stop, with the regulation two bells - DING DING!!   The driver was forbidden to start or move the bus an inch without that signal, not even for one bell.  

The drivers all had instruction on the location and dangers of the dozen or so low bridges sprinkled all over the city, but it was the conductor�s responsibility to ensure accurate route keeping, and if the driver did take a wrong turn and stray from the route and end up decapitating his bus under a low bridge, the conductor would have to have a first rate excuse as to why he shouldn�t be summarily dismissed as well. If a wrong turn was made, and easily done it was too, then the conductor would stop the bus, by the emergency stop procedure. If necessary, go and converse with his driver, agree on how to get back to where they went wrong, and reverse the bus safely into a side road, before picking up the route without missing a single stop! Sometimes easier said than done. That was the theory; in practice, common sense was called for, especially in being aware of all the dangers.

The conductor was also in charge of filling the bus radiator up with water when taking out of depot to start a service.  It was his job to get the hose, or more often a watering-can and find a tap, and fill the rad whilst the driver kept up a gentle revs on the throttle to keep the circulation going. Again, if a bus ran out of water and steamed-up, and an engine seized as a result, there would be an inquisition as to who failed to do what.  

In practice, the old buses were very leaky, and many would use a lot of water. Steaming-up was a regular occurrence; as often as once a week at times in summer, and frequently provided passengers with a welcome diversion to a boring day. Also it was some consternation to the older ones who could remember steam lorries and buses before the First War, and knew how easily they could blow up! A bus hurtling down the road with a well-brewed radiator spewing enough steam up the windscreen to necessitate the use of the wipers on a hot sunny day is still an amusing sight to me. Kids used to love it. But then, I�ve never really grown up.

My first week on the road was a revelation in many ways, and the last time for years that I would enjoy a reasonable starting and finishing time to my day. That week working roughly 8.30 a.m. to about 4 or 5 p.m., and off home, totally crackered. But now the real work was about to start: Early shifts, some very early, like 5.15 or 5.30 a.m. Very early would be the bane of my life for ever it seems now. It was easy to become a busman and provided you did your job reasonably well, easy to stay as one. In later years, I would find how hard it would be to leave the job, after being typecast, almost as an actor would be.

Before I leave the subject of training, more on Inspector Johnson (If I have his name wrong, someone please advise me ):  He had a brilliant memory as well as a good and wry sense of humour. There was no fiddle or trick he hadn�t heard of, and his mathematical mind for working out the odds when backing horses was something to behold. Perhaps it was his way of warning likely gamblers amongst us, but he showed that he was well aware of the temptation to use the bag money to finance trips to the bookies for those so inclined. We, that class of late October 1968, spent almost the whole of one afternoon talking about, and being instructed in, horse-racing, though not being really knowledgeable or that interested, I contributed little. He truly was an amazing man, shown more so in the ensuing weeks, when he would jump on any one of our buses on the road, just to keep a fatherly eye on us.  He would appear, literally out of the blue. You�d set off from a stop, look up again, and there he was, on the platform, smiling mischievously through his moustache.  He didn�t just know where any one of us would be at any given time, he knew what bit of duty we would be doing next, or tomorrow, and when our days off would be. I reckoned he knew what we had for breakfast.  He had every timetable for every route in his head, as well as all the duties and duty numbers. Talk about bloody organised! I�ve never met anyone quite like him since. By his firm but fatherly manner most liked him; therefore, most remembered his warnings and took heed of his advice. A first-rate tutor, bar none. 

And I can say without fear or favour, that you don�t get training like that anymore - anywhere.