Fares, please

Today

We decided to enter Brighton via the London Road today. This was a mistake as the traffic was practically stationary from the A27. The driving we saw was appalling. Eventually we could no longer stand seeing the people in the car in front of us chucking their rubbish out into the road. "I know an alternative route", said Paul, dashing off up Carden Avenue. I questioned his choice of route. "I know Brighton", said Paul "this will get us to where we're going". And he was right.

As we drove along Ditchling Road, I said "You used to drive buses along here. Does it feel like another lifetime to you?" "It certainly does", replied my spouse.

In My Day

After a brief and unsuccessful sojourn with the police force, Paul was looking around for another job. We were just married; I was at college and we were living off my overdraft. Brighton, Hove and District Buses were recruiting at the time and Paul applied. "Well..." they said "we don't normally take people under 23 years of age but come and have a test drive." They were impressed enough to offer him the job and, at 21, Paul became the youngest member of the company ever to hold a PSV licence.

The buses were double-manned with conductor and Paul was immediately allocated a punishing schedule of routes. I remember how dull it was, waiting for him to come home after a shift. Sometimes I was so bored I'd travel round on the bus with him - but that was pretty boring too.

On more than one occasion a bus would break down and he would be stuck in some back of beyond place like Whitehawk or Moulescombe, waiting for the breakdown truck to get him back to the depot. We had no phone so I simply had to wait until he turned up and told me lurid tales.

Some of the buses still had crash gearboxes and it was quite a challenge manhandling these beasts up and down the hills of Brighton. Paul told me of one hair-raising experience coming down Beaconsfield Villas towards the London Road when the brakes on the bus failed. As Paul struggled with the gears and handbrake the bus sailed past several stops where passengers simply stared as the bus whizzed by. Inside the bus there was a standing load and passengers again just had to watch as they missed their stop. With a cliffhanger finish worthy of "Speed" Paul pulled up the bus just before it reached the London Road. A few years back, Paul came across a picture of the very same bus and was amused to discover that it's now a motor home in Switzerland.

And all this for £14.00 a week. When a better-paid job came up at the local funeral parlour Paul gave up the joys and terrors of being on the buses and entered the strange world of the undertaker.

Paul still has a love affair with buses, though, and I've learnt quite a lot, perforce, about them too.