Us lot..on the buses,old days

Just a rememberance of the old days on the buses if anybody has them
school buses,on the way to work or just going shopping on one,times have changed so much...
I remember having to walk as a kid but when bus fares came affordable the seat frames were made of metal you could break your face on if there was a crash and the seat fabric was an instant graffiti board i reckon the filling in the seats wasnt healthy either Then they installed the dreaded mirror on the stairs so you was hiding to have a crafty under age cigarette or dodging a fare if there wasnt a conductor

 

Lived much of my childhood on buses (took two to get me to school and another two back). Reached a point where we knew many of the conductors and drivers by their first names ... didn't even know any of the neighbours by their first names, it was always Mr, or Mrs.

I had an accident on a push bike once and the following day, my mother insisted I go into town with her (oh I do wish she hadn't! ). The only seats available were those which faced opposite one another towards the back on the bottom deck. The whole journey I was being stared at by two other kids opposite, who I swear didn't even blink, just the whole journey! I was soooooo embarassed. I'd broken one of my teeth, my upper lip looked like botox gone wrong and one side of my face was just a gravel burn/graze (not to mention the other injuries but it was my face they were fixated on). Never understood why she did that

 

When I started work, before I was old enough to learn to drive, I used the bus.
Remember queueing up on cold mornings, then going upstairs with all the smokers.
The windows were running in condensation and you got a wet arm if you put it on the sill.
The air was thick with smoke, coughing everywhere, and it was usually packed out, but no standing allowed upstairs, so nobody fell on you as the bus went round corners.

We had those route master type buses, the best bit was jumping off while the bus was still moving, great fun.

 

This is a model of one of the Aldershot & District buses I used to catch into town when I was a Ziglet.



The real one is still going round the vintage rallies, not caught up with it to reclaim my Anglo bubble gum from under the seat yet.

 

The No. 6 (when I was a sproglet) went from the road next up from ours ( you went up 6 lots of 5 steps to get to that street). It was a trolley bus that was hooked onto overhead wires by 2 antennae. Sometimes at juctions or in icy conditions, they slipped off and the conductor had to get off, retrieve a huge long bamboo pole from under the bus chassis and hook it back up again cursing and blaspheming under his breath the whole time ...

 

I remember trolley buses in Birmingham. I was convinced they had toilets on them, but I might have been getting that confused with the first plane I went on, I was only about 2.

 

My dad was a bus driver for a while when I was very little. I remember being allowed to play buses in the house, wearing his cap and badge and driving my bus that was made out of a careful arrangement of dinner table seats.

Cap and badge? None of that these days. I remember my dad had to dress like a chaufer.

As for my memories of the buses, yes, too many of them. From being little and sitting for hours and hours (probably 45 minutes) on the bus while we went to see my mam's friend, to more recently, putting my hand in something slimey, almost certainly snot or sweat, when I grabbed the hand rail.

Oh, and I once couldn't eat my tea when I got home after witnessing a drunk bloke stand up, casually wobble towards the front before stopping in front of a young woman, he then got his todger out and wee'd on her, on the bus, in front of everyone. I don't use buses if I can help it.

When I lived in Sheffield, it was 2 miles to work, £1.20 on the bus. In the mornings I'd count up my bus fare, walk to the bus stop, then 9 times out of 10, just walk it instead.

 

I'd forgotten about them, yes we had one route that still used them, power cuts were fun, and 15mph up hill maximum.
Still better than walking home though.

 

Should have stood in the taxi rank before walking it, you would have saved 3 times as much.

 

Funnily enough, it was £1.20 fare when I used to get the bus to work too. It was an hours journey & coming home i'd sleep with my face against the window, only missed my stop once.

Which was ok till one busy friday, I finished work, had a mad dash for Gatwick & caught the plane to Spain to go stay with my Brother.

I fell asleep face against the plane window, & in my sleep thought I was on the bus.

I woke up as the plane was banking & was looking straight down from 32,000 feet

I had to appologise for grabbing hold of the woman sitting next to me

 

My fare to work was 10d, strange how it went up to 5p on the day we went metric.

 

You might have gone metric in Kent but I just went to the local farm & asked for a sack of spuds & was told they've only got a quarter hundredweight bag.

 

28 lbs then, we get them as half bags, but of course that's half 25Kgs, which is basically 28lbs.
Strange how the Europeans still like to follow our way of doing things

 

I have vivid memories of the daily school bus journey to high school, some 15 miles away.

The bus took a somewhat circuitous route, picking up at about 7 or 8 villages on the way.

God knows how that company ever got the contract. Breakdowns were frequent and drivers would often oversleep and turn up late (not that we minded being late for school in the mornings).

On one memorable occasion, the bus met a large lorry coming the other way in a narrow country lane. Something of an impasse was reached, so our driver decided to reverse a little way down the road. Within seconds there was a huge crunch as a tree branch suddenly came through the rear window.

Luckily no one was hurt and after a while we continued on our somewhat draughty journey to school.

Needless to say, for weeks afterwards we had great fun with that particular driver. As we approached the tree, shouts of "Look out!", Take Cover!" and "Don't Panic!" would ring out and there would be much hilarious diving under seats and adopting the crash position.