On the Buses ~ 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 a little bit pompous, nonetheless, it's the truth.

The dying age to which I was a first-hand witness was that of the now-lost 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 ... and is needed ever more now.

I suppose it could be said that buses were 'in my blood,' almost a psuedo-genetic 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 at one time of my other Grandparent. And the family pedigree for transport, if it can be called that, was in fact rooted in trains and trams, 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 50s, and some personnel were allowed to buy their own caravan, which the RAF would 'site' on a camp, all connected to the water and electricity 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. I still muse on 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 suspected dicky heart) at age 11, yet later pass a medical to drive a bus full of 80 trusting Leicester passengers, reasons are still beyond me. But I did. They must have been desperate.

And they were! 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 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, usually bone idleness.

It was different, of course, in other parts of the country, where there were serious shortages of real jobs, but this was definitely not the case then in my native Leicester and Coalville. It had been bad, 30 years before back in the 1930s. But a young fit lad like me had no excuse, non at all, not to work, in 1965. 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. He was very put out when the very first job I lighted on in the paper, and suggested I applied for, was as a 'battery-hand' in the Midland Red depot in Ashby Road. In fact, he went almost ballistic, to use a modern term. Wouldn't allow it. No son of his was going to work humping bloody great bus batteries around. Forget it. So I went to work, two days after my 15th, at the Coalville Co-operative selling shoes instead. Not much of an improvement, but at least it was clean, and safe. And thereby buses were put out of my mind.

From the Coalville Co-op to Leicester Co-op, to Timpsons Shoes, Benson's Shoes to Marshalls & Snelgroves and thence Lewis', to Simpkin & James, I nurtured some forlorn dream of pursuing a career in shop management. Shoes, soft furnishings, art and graphics work, food and produce, I tried them all. And all found in the pages of the Leicester Mercury, including the one as a photographer's assistant that turned out to be a total three-week con. Today it would have been a police matter, but then, the con firm disappeared back into the woodwork of London, owing hundreds in wages and hotel fees, and now't more was said. And so, finding myself out of work one day, and ambling dejectedly in the direction of the Dole Office that 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, perhaps 30 years, 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 only eight weeks previously, with no idea of the real pitfalls of the job, but a sort of fondness for buses, in I went. Like a lamb to the slaughter! Well, it was only going to be a temporary job, to tide me over. Just till something else turned up. Isn't that how we all started?

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 fraudulent 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 now as 'unemployed.' I had to get a job, must get a job, and damned 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. I only then had a vague notion of my family history's involvement with trams, and it didn't seem like fate at the time. Unexplainable, it just happened that way.

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 please fill out an application form and sit a small 'test' of writing and adding up. To my intense surprise, and delight, knowing my own dislike of the latter, I passed. I could write for England, but couldn't add up for gum drops ... but I did it that day. The inspector seemed pleased too .. he would! 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. Don't be late, lad.

The start day in question was Trafalgar Day, a historic, red-letter day for a lad keen on the Navy, the 21st October. And an 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 very 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 device, 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 or appreciate this fact then. If I had, I would have taken lots and lots of photographs. 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 so they don't. And it's my belief that the same can be said of the rail industry.

It was, in a way, 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 numbers, 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 polished peaked cap on which was the full crest of the city in silver staybright 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 - minus his cash bag and ticket machine - 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. They only had to train them for the job, not how to read and write, say please, thank you and sir, or how to get up in the morning and arrive on time for a shift. 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. Many still in their 40s and 50s had seen service during the war. There were even more Korean War and Suez veterans. The most dedicated amongst them quickly gained promotion to Inspector. Many of those 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 for a rookie, low-born erk like me, 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 very day I joined.

We spent the next several days in the upstairs classroom of the conducting school at Abbey Park Road, 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 1920s 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. Like the Town Hall itself, it exuded efficiency and authority, and dripped discipline in the same manner as any HQ buildings of a regiment of the line. Having to go and see anyone in that Head Office only meant one of two things, either a new uniform or part thereof from the basement, or a gigantic rollicking of nerve-racking order, resulting in massive loss of pay (bonus) or the job itself.

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 and paid for by the public rate, 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, also undertakings but of a much more modest nature, 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 modern 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, to move the people of the city and help to create that city's wealth. 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, both in work journeys and leisure, and therefore having to be 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 and where 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 enamelled 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 Midland Railway, the LMS, 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 1960s, and to shake off the dreary past of the defunct tram system and the drab 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 - very light and bright, 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 and would quit within the month. He seemed to take to me. He endeared himself to me on the first day - on hearing my name - by tentatively asking if I had any relatives previously on Leicester buses. For he remembered my great-grandfather with affection and respect. But, it seems, not so his son, of whom Inspector Johnson tactfully said nothing more to me. My tram-driver grandfather had stirred things somewhat with his extreme, left-wing, political views during the war, and brought shame on the family, and much more so on his own father, the late and beloved inspector. The word was in the family that young Arthur was forced to leave the trams. His dad, James, (Jim) Haywood had died before I was born, so I only heard of him by repute. A greatly admired man, it seems. 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 .. nearly double what I'd been on as a cheese salesman at Simpkin & James.

We learnt all about our Ultimate Ticket Machines, bells and stopping procedures; had waybills, paying-in slips, fares and stages and timetables up to the eyeballs; been thrown up the length of the training bus in numerous emergency stop exercises 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 throw 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, and the various training chiefs arranged it all to happen for drivers and conductors on the same day. When the driving instructors signalled that they were ready, the whole conducting class would troop out of the classroom like kids on an outing, down the stairs to the yard to board the training vehicle. We were not all allowed to sit, but five of us stood in the aisle shoulder to shoulder, the others sitting, 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. Sometimes, we were curled around each other's necks, but those being innocent days, no-one thought anything of it. We were, in effect, being given our first sea-legs. Sometimes it hurt, and so we learnt to hang on. This was 'training" .. learn what if felt like.

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 bloodless 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. And yes, it hurt. The old adage of a stitch in time really is true, far better to look after the tools of one's trade.

On the Road
Then the great day came; we were to be let loose on the unsuspecting public of 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 first training conductor was a mild-mannered man called Bert Chambers, 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 the shift at about 9 o-clock and 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 smiling, nay grinning, 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 the crime of 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 really was a hanging offence, as it was one of the commonest forms of 'fiddling the bag.' It worked with 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. The equivalent of keeping two sets of books in business. 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. No appeal, no tribunal.

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 phoning 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. Far more serious than dragging a passenger. 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. Many of those I argued the toss with were selfish, well-off toffs who'd never done a hard day's manual work in their lives, who thought I should serve them for nothing, and so I was never going to win. They could always have the last laugh .. at my head on a Corporation silver platter. They were mostly beyond understanding simple time-tables, and the simple logic of how a bus service ran. In fact, ordinary working folk seemed to have a better understanding of how the system worked, and were generally more forgiving when it did go wrong. They seemed to be able to make the system work for them, not against them.

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 deemed to be 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. That was the rule. But ... read on.

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 ... repeated ringing of the bell. 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, find a tap, and fill the rad whilst the driver kept up 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 so many ways, and the last time for years that I would enjoy a reasonable starting and finishing time to my day. That week, working those training duties from roughly 8.30 a.m. to about 4 or 5 p.m., and then off home, totally crackered, gave no preparation for the queer hours I would now keep. For 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 seemed 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 foolishly inclined. We, that class of late October 1968, spent almost the whole of one afternoon talking about, and being instructed in, horse-racing, though myself 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, appearing like the geni in the bottle, 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 not come across his like 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.

The "Ultimate" A few words about our ticket machines:
A recent enquiry via this website asking for my memories of the machines we used prompted me to add these paragraphs, given that the fare collection equipment is now historic, and has nearly as many devotees and interest groups as the buses themselves. So here are a few memories of those at Leicester Corporation, as well as later at East Yorkshire Motor Services, and later still at Hull City Transport.

Ultimate ... the name of my constant companion for about 4 years. A marvellous bit of kit, and its virtues were fully extolled right from the training school onwards. Training inspectors, and older staff of the same generation, would have memories of the limitations of earlier machines, and so these Ultimates were to them like modern day computers are to us .. something to be revered. If one were to be put in my hands now, I think I could still open and load it with fresh tickets. In fact, as far as I know, most Coporation transport undertakings used them.

I thought those 5-lever Ultimates were the thing, the standard, until I went on a day trip to Northampton and saw that they had 7-lever machines! By God, I bet they were heavy. Mine was bad enough .. made the shoulder's ache rotten until you got used to them. Of course, the cash bag did the same for the other shoulder, so at least when we walked a bit stooped, we were in balance. At the other end of the scale, I also recall being open-mouthed at the smallest Ultimate I ever saw, a tiddly 2-lever machine .. used to take fares in the cliff-top lift at Shanklin on the IOW. Wierd little things.

Prior to my time, the late 60's, I'm guessing that they had some sort of Bell Punch, hangovers from the days of the trams. The cylindrical machines that some might remember in use in Leicester at the same time, with a handle to wind the ticket out, are the "Setright" machines of the Midland Red .. also later used by me on East Yorkshire when I came to live in these parts. I don't ever recall Setrights being used by LCT. They were, er, good ... but prone to complications. I never had the same fondness for them as for the Ultimate.

The other thing of course, was that they were incredibly fast. I could get round the lower saloon and get all my fares in between leaving the Clock Tower and getting to British Shoe on Belgrave Road. Or just about get them in from Gallowtree Gate to London Road Station. Not so easy with a Setright .. but the journeys operated by the Midland Red and other rural operators tended to be longer. Going up London Road from Northampton Square, even with a full bus, I should imagine a Midland Red conductor would have until the city boundary at Stoneygate in which to get round his bus and get all his fares in. Probably had to be quicker down Aylestone Road and Saffron Lane, where they operated a joint service with LCT, the well-loved L8 and L10.

There was a variation on the Ultimate, for One-Man Operators, the Solomatic .. mounted on a pedestal in the cab. Strong memories there of drivers carrying their huge Solomatics about the town centre in a green canvas bag .. much heavier than ours. That's why most LCT one-manners were shortish men with very stocky shoulders. Mostly, they could be seen at the top end of Abbey Park Road, on crew changeovers on the Outer Circle. Drivers used to walk over the river and canal bridge to and from the depot.

After the Solomatics, I can only presume they went over to something like the Wayfarer, or another product from Bell Punch. As well as the driver having a machine in the cab, LCT did experiment with a self-service machine, fitted on the luggage rack behind the platform doors. The exact fare was dropped in the top, a large green button on the top was pressed and the "Video-Matic" actually printed a ticket with a photocopy facsimile of the coins used .. I still have some somewhere. Any inspector that was ticket checking had to add up the row of coins printed on the ticket to determine the fare paid.

If a passenger paid his shilling in ha'pennies, it was a ruddy long ticket, believe me. When they went wrong, it was hilarious, they frightened elderly passengers to death. The machine, on the rack, was taller than some elderly passengers, and a bit intimidating. I saw several that nearly had a heart-attack when the machine went beserk and threw rolls of plain paper directly at them. One old guy, short in stature and not seeing the button on top, asked the driver how to use it, and was jokingly told to be careful or a hand would come out of the returned coins slot below and grab him by his nethers. He hit the button, and the machine just happened to misbehave and went mad. The old fellah nearly fainted. Video-Matics were prone to the vibrations and bumps and jolts of Leicester's poor roads. Yes, they were poor even then. Not improved much since the Romans left.

Come to think, there was another machine used later by me on EYMS, the dreaded Almex, that was round, barrel-shaped, with prices put up on red slides, and a lever at the side to issue the ticket. I don't ever recall seeing those at LCT. Like the Setright, they were for multiple fares of way over a shilling, and up until I left LCT in 1972, the highest ticket we had was just one shilling, or 5p as it became. My nightmare memory of the Almex was later, in Hull, trying to open my ticket box after accidentally running over one with the front wheel of my bus. Smashed the machine to smithereens, and nearly got myself the sack. Those flimsy ticket boxes were no protection against an idiot like me. Don't ask me just how I came to put my ticket box down by the front of my bus, but gassing with another driver had something to do with it. Poor memory did the rest.

The Setright had a double dial on the top .. inner for pounds, outer for pennies. Earlier than that, they must have been really complicated, or perhaps just set up for shillings and pence. Come to think, a pound for a bus fare back then would have taken you to London and back on the Midland Red's new M1 Express Service, so I imagine they only went up to 19/9d.

Back to the wonderful Ultimate ... the tickets were pre-paid and colour-coded by price, on rolls of a 100 .. for which we had to sign for, so each roll was worth the face value of the total number of tickets. Penny tickets were red, one-shilling almost white. I think 2d were green, etc. At a penny each, 1d, therefore a hundred pennies, divided by 12, made a roll actually worth just over 8/-. Likewise, a roll of one-shilling tickets was a hundred shillings .. or £5. We knew not to lose them, every one had to be accounted for, sold, and the cash paid in. The total value of a full stock of tickets in a conductor's ticket box, including the ones in his machine, could be well over a £20, even then. Unthinkable now. And we walked about town, day or night, to and from our buses, with those and our cash takings, quite safely and with never a thought about security or theft.

My best "Ultimate" memory is of travelling home after a middle shift one wet and windy night, about 8.30-ish, on a 49 down Aylestone Road. I sat on the back seat, and the young new conductor, an Indian or Pakistani chap, had opened his machine and was trying to load a new 1/- roll as we bounced along, balancing himself on the platform. He either slipped or lost his grip, but this roll of tickets slipped out of his hand before he got it properly into the machine, and rolled off the platform at about 40mph. He threw his hands up in dismay, and for a few seconds, I had the gut feeling that he wasn't going to do anything about it. I insisted he stop the bus, quick, but he was either in shock or mesmirised. I rang the emergency bell ... three bells, repeatedly, and the driver dutifully pulled us up down the slope, just about under Aylestone Road railway bridge, just before the gasworks. The roll had left the platform as we passed the top of Saffron Lane! We spent the next ten minutes in the pouring rain, tracing the length of the roll back up the dark and badly lit road, winding loop after loop of a hundred wet and soggy tickets over my arm. He didn't have to pay for them in the end, as I put a report in the next day supporting what had happened. But if he'd been on his own, and left them, that would have been £5 quid down the pan .. the equivalent then of a quarter of a week's wages. A nightmare to me, and I couldn't let it happen to him.

Looking Back ...
The good citizens of that fair city still have no idea what they really had, and later lost, when it all disolved in an air of quick profits and sell-outs, sell-offs, and grubby land deals when the whole corporation transport system and ethic was dismantled and almost made illegal in the mid-80s. Visitors from other operations around Europe had for years beaten a track to Leicester's doors to see their innovative close-circuit camera and two-way radio system for helping to regulate the service and mitigate the worst effects of growing traffic congestion. Leicester pioneered Park n' Ride, quieter engines, bus lanes, all just then coming in, along with little ingenious black box devices in the cab for changing traffic lights to the bus' favour, all were starting to be installed. All was set for Leicester to be amongst the leaders in the world for advances in public transport, and then .... Wallop !! All sacrificed on the alter of pure profit and very little else. A corporation monopoly was deemed to be unfair.

Well, is there any bus user in the city now that would say with their hands on their heart that the present situation is 'fair'? Fragmented, unsettled, unreliable for any real long-term planning of industry, work or schooling, I can't see Leicester's ancient motto of 'Semper Eadem' in operation here. Always being mucked about would be more appropriate. But, it was the same everywhere, the city was not immune to the national scandal of publicly owned land, buildings, rolling stock in the vehicles, all painstakingly paid for over the decades out of the rate, being confiscated, almost stolen from them, and sold off for a song to some very well-off people. Those depots, and in other towns, bus stations, belonged to the citizenry of those towns .. but confiscated they were, and legally under the auspices of a very unpopular act of parliament ! To men who grew up with the Victorian corporation ethic of the first half of the century, it must have seemed unbelievable, a catastrophe. Parliament had achieved in the transport industry what enemy bombing never had .. a fragmented, demoralised, and almost useless industry .. in current jargon, not fit for purpose.

I see plaintive pleas now in the Leicester Mercury, letters to the editor from a younger and unknowing generation of suffering Leicester travellers, wondering why they have to suffer so, why they can't have a better service at night, why are the fares so high, why does a service suddenly disappear without warning, rhyme or reason, or change its route inexplicably. It's because they can't be voted out, dear folk, they're not accountable, except to a bank and shareholders. Yes, you could say that about the old Midland Red. But the only reason the Midland Red became the company it became was because of the sheer numbers of folks travelling and profits in those days were good .. most bus companies made money up to the mid-50s.

They could afford to be altruistic, and subsidising a poorly paying evening service to a village with a profitable day-time town service wasn't illegal then. The corporation used to cross-subsidise massively. The full-to-bursting East Park Road daytime service used to help fund less used services elsewhere in the evening. I don't recall the service 26 to affluent Welford Road being exactly three-bell loads after tea when I was there, but they had a service. What's wrong with cross-subsidy of a public service anyway? But when times became hard, and passengers became less, even the Midland Red had to be nationalised and subsidised to survive in the end.

With totally private, large bus companies, your travelling interests do not, and never will, come first. And too many smaller, three-bus operators, all fighting and racing for that last passenger, are dangerous and unreliable. I should know .. I was one of thousands of similarly misled Corporation drivers nationwide who were stupidly racing down main roads trying for those same undeserving passengers when the whole system was sold for few pennies and went to pot. By then, I was in Hull, but the story and scenario were much the same. Several ex-Corporation drivers, sacked for various reasons as not being fit to deal with the public or be in charge of a Corporation bus, went to work for those flea-bit jinty operators. Cowboys at work were very evident in Hull, and I've no doubt things were much the same in Leicester.

Leicester just about had the best of it, by the 80s, public transport was just starting to come round right and benefit from new technology, radios, cameras, etc. Then its citizens watched passively as it was all just about given away. It's safe to say, that within reason, the old Corporation system for all its faults, run by the Town Hall and accountable through your local councillors, did put the public first and foremost. And until you get it back, and find a way to fund it and make it's operations truly accountable, you will continue to choke and suffer. Whether in your own car in long stationery queues, or freezing to death waiting for buses that ain't gonna come, suffer you will. And pay. For a long, long time yet. One day, about 40 years from now, some bright spark will come up with 'a new idea' ... wouldn't it be good if the public had charge of their own transport system, and EVERYONE in the city paid a bit into the same pot to fund it. One day ....

I still can't see what was wrong with funding from the rates, nor in cross-subsidising, but that apparently is now uncompetitive. Ah well, there you go, 'modern' business ethics have it. My great-grandfather, and the also long-now-dead Inspector Johnson, to say nothing of the fabled manager, L H Smith, will all be turning in their graves. Neither Arriva, Stagecoach, FirstBus, call them what you will, are a patch on what was lost and given away. Whatever service folk think they have now, PUBLIC service it ain't !