Glasgow Transport Memorabilia, ON THE BUSES (GCT), April 1960 to February 1974, Page 6

ON THE BUSES (GCT), April 1960 to February 1974
By George Rountree.

Page 1/2/3/4/5/6/7

THE LEYLAND 'LOWLANDER' 747 EUS

The year after I started in Newlands the Lowlander, a new type of Leyland front entrance double-decker bus, was introduced by what had become the Leyland Albion Company. (Leyland had taken over Albion.) It had a front entrance body of different design from the other PD3 buses, with a lower floor and an all-over height reduced by about six inches, which allowed it to pass under bridges that were too low for the other buses. The Bristol Bus Company had already introduced their Lowdekka with a similar feature. The Lowlander had the normal Leyland driving controls, and one of them, having no fleet number it was known by its registration number 747 EUS, was loaned to the Corporation for appraisal, initially for a period of six months. As it was built locally in Scotstoun, it might have generated sales for the manufacturer. It was based at Newlands where, being the only Leyland in the garage, it caused a sensation among the drivers, and immediately gained a reputation of being a fast powerful bus. A couple of weeks went past before I got to drive it and found it lived up to its reputation, to the extent that when compared with the Gardner engined vehicles even the engine sounded like it meant business. While it was great to drive, some modifications to the design of the saloons came in for severe criticisms.
At that time there were two inspectors with a mean reputation who skulked around in plain clothes looking for members of the green-staff disobeying the rules. They came on board the Lowlander on another occasion when I was driving and remained there to the terminus, which made me wonder if they were going to pull me up for something. But during the layover they spent the time with us, the conductor and I, examining and discussing the new design, although they were rather scathing of some of the features. At the end of the six months EUS 747 went away and we thought we wouldn't see it again, but after a short time it came back and remained with us for another three months. At the end of this period it went away again, but we saw it on the road operating briefly from another Corporation garage. Glasgow Corporation didn't order any, and after a year it went away for good and in the end it was sold to a Lancashire company. See photo on page 22 in Alan Miller’s book Streets of Glasgow in my collection on an occasion when I might have been the driver!

'FOREIGN' BUSES

Over the fourteen years I was at Newlands there were occasions when an unusual number of the garage’s own vehicles were being serviced, away for overhaul, or had been put off the road because of accidents which left a shortage. When this happened, for brief periods of from a day or two up to a couple of months, other garages with spare vehicles were called on to make up the numbers. Among these, a couple of Leyland 7'6" wide PD2/25s arrived and stayed for a few weeks. At different times there were various 8' wide PD2/24s, the most memorable of these were L99, 100, 101, 272 and 280. I regretted that other than 747 EUS I never got to drive any of the other front entrance PD3s.
When two of the front entrance AEC Regent Vs, A360 and A361, arrived, and remained at Newlands for an unusually long time in 1963, there was some excitement among the more perceptive drivers. While they were otherwise easy to drive and very powerful, initially both had extremely stiff steering and going round 90º corners, particularly when loaded, for someone like me it needed a maximum effort to turn the wheel. On one occasion when on the 38 service, turning left from Castle Street into Cumbernauld Road with a full load, I could not clear the traffic waiting at the red light in the latter road. I had to wait for the lights to change and the road to clear before I could get round. The problem generated many complaints from drivers, and after a week or two they were taken away singly over a day or two, and when they came back the difference was like night and day, with almost finger tip steering even with the heaviest load. I wonder now if they had power steering that wasn't working when they arrived, but was fixed during their absence.
For a brief period at this time there was a shortage of single deckers in Newlands and three Daimlers, DS19, 20 and 21, arrived to help out. Initially they were regarded with scorn as being ancient and clapped out by the drivers, but after the first time of driving our opinions altered to being favourably impressed with the comfort and performance. They were powerful and easy to drive, and compared well with the double deckers of the same vintage, D1 etc.

THE LEYLAND ATLANTEANS

< Leyland Atlantean LA598 in Newlands Garage.

These buses were excellent when new, but as with those of other companies problems appeared as they aged. As stated before, because the Newlands allocations of Daimlers in the early 1960s were relatively new vehicles, Newlands was about the last garage to receive any. It was two years after the first of them appeared and were allocated to other garages, before LAs 168 and 169 appeared, and another lengthy period elapsed before more arrived to replace the oldest Daimlers (D1 to 15) when they were withdrawn.
    There was another seemingly exciting development when LA 322, the first of two Atlanteans with fully automatic gearboxes, arrived. All the drivers were looking forward to working with it, but serious drawbacks became apparent when going uphill with a full load, which made it unpopular. The main difficulty was that when travelling up a long gentle slope like Fenwick Road with a heavy load it would change up easily to third gear. But when it went into top it was unable to maintain the speed, and as it slowed down it changed back down, and so on up and down. This was all very well in that you would eventually get to where you were going. But over a long stretch on roads like the Fenwick it caused time to be lost which would not have happened with the normal semi electro-manumatic change, when the throttle could be held down until maximum speed had been reached in each gear, giving the next one up a better chance. The second automatic Atlantean was LA 362, but I have no clear memory of driving it because after a short time at Newlands it became the first vehicle to be fitted out for one-man operation.
    A frightening event occurred to me with an Atlantean when driving south in Pollokshaws Road at Pollokshaws West railway station. Cruising along past the Burgh Hall at around 30mph I was preparing to stop at Maida Street. When I applied the brake the 'low air pressure' warning buzzer came on, the braking effect faded then the pedal went to the floor. The bus coasted on to a gentle stop well past the bus stop, assisted of course with a frantic pull on the handbrake. Fortunately the road in front had been clear, but it could have happened in different circumstances, going down Renfield Street loaded for example, with quite serious and possible fatal consequences.
    Another amusing event came about with the introduction of the very first bus with an all-over advertisement. LA211 came to Newlands decked out in the most garish style it was possible to imagine for that time, but a style that perhaps would be regarded as 'normal' today, to advertise the Carrick Discount Store. I was one of the first to take it out, and all along the 45 route it was greeted with more double-takes, people standing open-mouthed and with eyes out on stalks than I had ever experienced before or since.
    Here's another anecdote about an Atlantean. Before leaving the garage the engine radiator water level must be checked by topping up. At the outer end of the main lyes of the garage there were water taps with hoses for this purpose, which incidentally came from a supply which was independent of the domestic mains, in that it was untreated and was labelled not for human consumption. Late for departure I was in the process of doing this, having opened the filler cap the hose was pushed in and the tap turn on, and the flow of water was audible. Usually the radiator could not be filled at the maximum flow because of back-flow and the volume had to be restricted, but on this occasion it took it with the tap fully open. However, after more time had elapsed than would have filled it up even if it had been empty there was no sign of it overflowing, but I gave it more time and the water continued to rush in. At this point I thought it must be going somewhere else, and after looking below for a leak around the rear, without thinking I walked to where I could see inside to find out if the bus itself was filling up! Of course it was pouring out, but at the front where a coupling of a heater hose supplying the windscreen demisters had come off. More likely it was being worked on during the night and the fitter had forgotten to reconnect it. I had to go to the superintendent’s office and ask for another bus.

EVENTS ON THE ROAD

This incident I witnessed after the trams were withdrawn from Pollokshaws Road but before the lines were lifted. It was mid-morning and I was heading for the town centre, and passing under the railway bridge at Shawlands station, I noticed that the half dozen or so drain covers in the centre of the road, the heavy square type referred to by locals as ‘graters’, had all popped up from their seatings as far as I could see to High Shawlands. Some were lying clear of the holes while others were still in them but lying about at odd angles. A few of the occupants had emerged from the nearby villas, and were standing about with apprehensive looks on their faces, as if it had just happened. If I remember correctly there was little traffic so it may have been a Sunday. It was obvious that there had been an explosion in the underground channel linking the man-holes which gave access to the sewers. I’m not clear about the outcome but I think everything was back to normal when I came back on the returned journey, so the covers must have been replaced quickly. I remember being disappointed when there was no mention of it in the press. For some time after this I wondered of there was a connection between that event and the following one witnessed just a few days before.
At this time a squad of workers were sometimes encountered working on the main roads with a large cable drum on a trailer, and I mean the big type that often had CALLANDER’S CABLES, RENFREW marked on it. If I remember correctly the cable was about 6ins thick and sheathed in lead, but up to now I hadn’t thought much about what they were doing. The drain covers on the above section of road were been removed, and the men appeared to have unrolled the cable and laid it out along the centre of the road. They were cutting it into sections of about ten feet, using an axe head fixed on a length of iron rodding and a 14lb hammer. This was more than forty years ago, and in the ignorant state of my early years it briefly passed through my mind that they were cutting it up to place it in the underground channel. What seems more likely now is that the cable could have been the redundant earth return feed of the tram’s power supply which they were recovering as salvage. But don’t ask why the cable drum was there. Perhaps in the interval after my passage on the day of the explosion mentioned above, the main road was closed for a short time and traffic was diverted, and that was why a resident had seen a bus passing along nearby St. Ronan’s Drive. It is very likely that the explosion was caused by a leak of gas from the nearby mains, or an accumulation of methane that forms in sewers, but I suppose we will never know what ignited it.

IT'S A 'SHORT LIFE'

Before I joined the buses life had been relatively tranquil. I left the grocery trade in August 1958, where I was earning under £10 per week as a counter hand, to take a job as tea salesman with Robert McKeeman of Kirkintilloch. He was a grocer and tea blender with four grocery branches on the north side of Glasgow. The position I was aiming for was known at that time as ‘representative’ or ‘rep’ for short, but the job lasted for only eight months, and I was only marginally better off than before. But having no transport of my own at that time, what attracted me to the job was that I had the use of a Ford half-ton van. The eight months spent selling tea was interesting, but when the elderly owner of the business died early in 1959 it was in a bad way with much debt. When his son, also Robert, took over the running of the business he was unaware that the business was heading for bankruptcy. When it was found there was little or no money to keep going the business had to be closed down, and I was paid off. But during my time with McKeeman I had made a number of good contacts in the trade, and thought that if I could find another job with odd hours and had some form of transport, although technically they belonged to McKeeman, I might be able to hold on to these customers and come to an arrangement with one of the other local merchants to sell their tea.
    This was the main reason I took the bus driving job, and within a week of starting at the bus school I had acquired a Ford Thames 15cwt. van, and negotiated with a bigger and much better-known and long established company, McGavin & Sclanders, to sell their product. However, this arrangement did not last long, simply because the overtime available on the buses proved to be much more convenient and was better paid. When I started full time driving at Newlands there was so much overtime available that my first full week’s wage was about fifty percent more than I had ever earned before. But when I encountered an older former work-mate who was still in the grocery trade I had left behind, the ‘easy life before the buses fact was brought to my attention and gave me qualms. We had worked together in the late 1940s in the Co-op grocery shop at Cowglen Terrace, Househillwood. During the first month of driving I was drawing into the westbound bus stop in Barrhead Road at Pollokshaws West at 7.45 am, when I noticed John Brady standing in the queue. Opening the cab window, I called to him for a brief word, but I've never forgotten the look on his face and what he said when he saw me. His expression was grim as he uttered the words 'it's a short life; you'll no' last long at that game!'.
    The work rota for bus crews was made up into a system known as 'the cycle' by which crews changed each week by moving up one. The duties were mainly composed of two long or three shorter selected periods of manning of varying amounts of time on the road, the longest of which had a maximum of four-and-three-quarter hours, with a minimum break between two of them of 45 minutes. Shifts were usually in two parts that together made up as near as possible to the maximum total of eight hours. But when all the shifts were made up there were always odd amounts of the timetables left over which had to be assembled within the daily time-frame, so that there were a number of ‘scrappy’ shifts of three or even four parts. It must have been a nightmare for the people who made them up, who would be well aware of the complaints about inconvenience to come from the staff who had to work them. This was further complicated by occasional changes made to the bus timetables, which of course meant a complete revision of shifts and the cycle, and Saturday, Sunday and holiday timetables.
    The part shifts started and finished either at the garage or one of three relief points. Shawlands Cross was the main one covering the 21, 39, 45(a), 48(a) & 57 services. The others were, Corrour Road for the 38 and 38a services, and Merrylee Road (westbound) & Nether Auldhouse Road (eastbound) for the 40. The garage workload was covered each week by at its maximum in Newlands, up to 150 shifts, or weekly cycles. This meant that it needed over 200 crews to cover all the shifts, days off and holidays, sicknesses and absentees, and it took crews just under three years to work through the cycle. After the mid 1960s the number of shifts required began to decline as gradually fewer buses were needed, which meant that by the early 1970s the cycle total had declined to under 100. New starts worked as spares for two or three weeks, as I did, before being allocated a vacancy on the cycle, which then advanced by one each week, until it was worked through and came back to where you started. Weekday timetables were the same, but Saturdays and Sundays were individually different.
    Discontent expressed by 'green-staff' crew members, mainly drivers, is a powerful memory of this period. Some individuals moaned constantly about 'this 'adjectival joab', and got up to all sorts of tricks on and off the road to relieve what they saw as boring monotonous drudgery which seemed to me to be reprehensible. Subconsciously and not feeling confident enough to voice my feelings openly, I felt sorry for the moaners, even although they were the very ones responsible for making conditions unpleasant for everyone else. It seemed to me that they were poor souls condemned to spend a third of their lives, up to eight hours a day, doing something they loathed. And here I was, apart from suffering from the stress they generated, really enjoying myself and being paid for it too, with plenty of scope to indulge in additional work in the form of unlimited overtime at time-and-half or double time. The shortage of drivers persisted for most of my time, and while green-staff members working through the cycle had every other Sunday off, working a shift on a Sunday off, known as a ‘red’ Sunday, paid double time. I remember on one occasion working a New Year’s Day shift at treble time, the going rate for that day, because it happened to be my day off. The elation lasted for about ten years until I too began to feel the pressure as eventually the enjoyment began to wear off. When I left after 13 years and ten months I estimated that less than 5 per cent of green-staff had been there longer me. But what enabled me to survive longer than most towards the end was by cutting down gradually on the amount of overtime I worked.
    The malcontents would do anything but drive in a responsible way. Such tactics as deliberately failing to turn up for duty, or reporting late for a shift which was known to be difficult, like long hours and/or busy routes at peak times, were common practice. At busy times up to five spare drivers and conductors were retained to cover for absences and staff reporting too late to take up a shift, which meant that one of them was called on to stand in. Another dodge was 'signing on' at starting time, and then failing to turn up for a roadside relief which meant that the driver to be relieved had to carry on and complete another half-journey. The only exception here was that if the driver (the time restriction did not apply to conductors) had been working to near the maximum time allowed without a break and no spares were available, the passengers were taken off and transferred to the next bus. The vehicle was then ‘run in’ to the garage. But if he could do so within the time limit, the driver had to carry on to the terminus then run direct into the garage. These complaints applied also to conductors to a certain extent who, on the whole, somehow seemed to be rather less discontented. The above is only a brief outline of what could happen; it would need a few more pages to cover just some of the other ramifications. A brief example of one of these was that if it happened to a driver at the end of the first part of their shift, he would be unable to take up the second part because of the required 45 minutes minimum break. The complications here were endless
    Compared with the trams, driving buses was more stressful as can be seen from the following. While a significant number of tram drivers survived to retire at sixty five who lived to enjoy their retirement, some for many years, few bus drivers lasted long enough in the job to the age of retirement. They were mostly ex-tram drivers nearing retiral age who were displaced from the cars, who, rather than take early retirement, had elected to move on to the buses many of whom had spent only a short time on them before retiring. During the two decades after I last drove a bus, the number of fellow-drivers who died at a relatively young age was phenomenal. On meeting former colleagues the first topic brought up was - who's died since we last met? If you look at drivers of buses today none seem older than their 30s, which seems to indicate that the high turnover of staff endemic in the 1960s continues today.
    The main causes of the stress were some drivers deliberately running late or early to avoid as far as possible the very purpose they were there and getting paid for, carrying passengers, and the practice called 'tailing'. This practice led drivers (and conductors too) to buy a copy of the bus services timetables, a small booklet that was on sale at newsagents, and look up the times of buses on other services due to pass along their route around their time. They then deliberately ran early to be close behind any ahead of them or, if there was another one close behind they might run late, so that the other bus ran ahead of them doing most of the work - until the ruse was spotted. Behaviour like that may appear infantile to anyone who has never been in a situation where there is the chance of competition of this kind. No-one can have any idea of the ill-feeling, quarrels, tension and violent behaviour that can be generated when you think that someone is trying to take advantage of you. Reams of stories could be written around this aspect of the job. However the following personal tale will suffice but there are many others that could be related.
    With the single exception of the number 40, all services passing Peat Road roundabout ran into the Broomielaw terminus and back by the same route, except for the loop at the city end. On this occasion I was working a back shift, the main part of which was on the then 48a service between Priesthill and the Broomielaw. After the rush hour when service frequencies were reduced, this is when any driver keen on the scenario described above would have checked up on his 'all services' timetable to find the times of the other three services using the same route to town. These were the 21 from the eastern end of Linthaugh Road which arrived at Peat Road roundabout along Braidcraft Road. The 39 came from the western end of that same road and approached along Brockburn Road. Or the most likely of all was the 23, which approached the roundabout along Barrhead Road from Crookston Road. The off-peak timing of the 21, 39, 48 & 48a services was arranged so that there was a five-minute frequency between the roundabout and the Broomielaw. This meant that if all ran to time it was unusual for a driver on these services to see, except fleetingly, any of the others. But the 23s were the fly in the ointment.
    The 23 service frequency was one every 15 minutes, which meant that the biggest gap possible between them and any of the other services was three minutes; this was a recipe for generating friction between drivers of the worst possible kind. In roughly equal measure Larkfield and Ibrox staff manned the 23s, and they were regarded with loathing by the Newlands crews. They were regarded as 'foreigners' in this area, isolated from their own territory and outnumbered by the buses from Newlands. That feeling was of course reciprocated with interest by Larkfield and Ibrox crews. The reason for this was that if a Newlands driver tailed another Newlands bus he might afterwards discover that it was being driven by someone he regarded as a friend, and many a friendship foundered because of this. So the more considerate souls among them sometimes held back in case they found themselves in this situation, therefore there were far fewer needle matches between drivers from the same garage. But the 23s were different. All were regarded as fair game, so their crews too had adopted a hard-nosed attitude towards all of us, for they had absolutely no friends along this section of the route to and from the city centre. (In the other direction they of course ran between the Peat Road roundabout via Crookston and Hillington to the Govan terminus at Govan Cross in Greenhaugh/Robert Streets.
    To continue the story of the incident in which I was involved. It began in the early part of an evening after the rush hour, which then lasted from about 4.30 to 6.30pm, when the reduced services were busy with many people travelling into town to the cinemas and dance halls. On that journey at that time it was nearly always hectic and it was during the light nights of summer. If you were being tailed in the dark by a driver you couldn't see unless you took some trouble to find out, you didn't feel quite so bad about it. The first evening on the 48a, at the start of that journey I had no thought of the possibility of an encounter with the dreaded 23 until it was too late to do anything about it. But there was one and he took advantage of my ignorance and got behind me. He obviously had checked his timetable while I had neglected to do so with mine, and when I did this it was to find we were timed to run along the route at the same time. On the second night I tried to sit him out at the foot of Peat Road. But he had the advantage over me in that if I let myself become more than a few minutes late, the 48(a) services being the busiest, the volume of passengers using my bus grew so much that it wasn't worth while carrying on with the (imagined) dispute. So I pressed on and the score was 2-0 to him. By this time I was beginning to feel desperate, and considered that it was going to be one hell of a week unless some strategy could be evolved to get the better of him, preferably without breaking the rules too much!
    The third night I feigned a minor defect and left the terminus a couple of minutes late, fully expecting that he would not have waited more than a minute or two for me to go on ahead. On nearing the foot of Peat Road, with a well loaded bus because of the lateness, I was amazed and elated to see him passing on through. He had obviously waited in Barrhead Road for as long as he dared, before making a move, and did so just as I appeared which gave us a relatively easy time for the rest of that journey. Score, still 2-1 to him with two days to go! This was a prime example of the kind of stressful situation that many drivers couldn't cope with; it was as if it was designed to induce neurosis, a churning stomach and ulcers.
    Readers of this tale, as interested observers who might possibly be bus enthusiasts of a later generation, are asked to imagine how they would react if they found themselves driving early or late on in the rush-hour back then. Sometimes they found themselves being followed by up to six or more buses that were all having an easy time, while your vehicle was picking up everything and was running all the way loaded to the gunnels? Imagine you are on the normally busy 48 service running to Nitshill (later South Nitshill), and you know full well that among the lot on your tail are a 21, a 39, and a 23. These were quieter services whose timing should have been arranged to put them in the lead to carry the burden of short distance passengers. If they were running in front of you on the outward journey from the town, they would mop them up and leave room for the greater number of passengers intending to travel up Peat Road who were otherwise being left behind.
    Again, reams of stories could be written around this aspect of the job, particularly of travellers going to the outer reaches of the route who can use only your bus to get to their destination. What I, and others of like mind, found so intensely irritating in a situation like this was that, on a rush-hour late afternoon journey from the town, for example, many short distance travellers piled on to and filled up any convenient bus, as they were perfectly entitled to do. It frequently happened that a full bus had many on board who would go off before Pollokshaws West, while at every stop on the initial part of the journey people were being left behind who you knew intended travelling out beyond the West. It is certain there would be among them some who were going to have to wait twenty minutes or more for the next one to get them to their destination. What can you do about it without causing a scene and maybe making a fool of yourself, nothing! Many new faces appearing at Newlands lasted only for a brief time; obviously they couldn't stand the strain generated by this aspect of driving buses.
    The story related above ended in a most satisfying way. By this time the one-way traffic system had been introduced and the city terminus had been changed to Midland Street. On the fourth evening a risk was taken by departing from the terminus a couple of minutes early, and driving quickly down past the roundabout and along the Barrhead Road so as to be out of sight of the roundabout, hopefully before my adversary arrived there. I knew full well that if we were at the adjacent stops together, he would just sit and wait for me to go ahead of him, and that if we could get past that point without him seeing us, he might wait himself late. It worked a treat. We enjoyed a quiet journey into town, and were about to depart on the return leg before he dashed in loaded, with the next Newlands service 21 or 39 tailing him. It was nice to imagine the steam coming from his ears, for it was quite evident he had fallen for the ruse and waited for us at Peat Road, making himself so late he had had a rather busy journey. He didn't even have the satisfaction of following close behind me on the return leg, for by the time his load got off and those waiting for him got on board, we were long gone and we never saw him again. Score: two each! It really was developing into a needle match. On the final evening of the week I ran to time but there was no sign of him, so we took the liberty of assuming he couldn't stand the strain.
    It will be obvious from that story how the responsibility of driving a passenger carrying public service vehicle and running to a timetable can be so easily lost sight of, with the work of the crews developing into a game of cat and mouse with each other. It would take someone with exceptional strength of mind to ignore the implications of being imposed on and resist retaliating. Only a tiny handful of drivers of what could only be described as of restricted vision were able to put up with it and didn’t retaliate, mainly because they simply seemed unaware of what was going on the road behind them. They probably needed to focus all their attention to the front and what was happening inside their vehicle, and they were known as deadbeats! A conversation between two drivers who met in the garage after their shifts ended comes to mind about an event like that. 1st driver- 'Why did you let that 23 tail you all the way along Pollokshaws Road, when he should have been a minute in front of you, and you with a full bus and him running almost empty?' 2nd driver, with a puzzled look and after a few seconds thought. 'I never noticed, I was just getting on with the job!' If only ALL drivers had been like that.
    Rough and generally bad driving was only one aspect of the problems created by the above scenario, which of course reflected on all drivers. Most of the time it was caused by crews of driver and conductor becoming friends, so that the driver considered he was doing his conductor a favour in making sure he did as little work as possible collecting fares. But the most exasperating practice was this feuding with other drivers whose official timetable timing happened to be near their own. It caused the jockeying for position behind each other so that it/they did all the work of carrying the short distance passengers. The biggest offenders here, for obvious reasons, were those drivers paired with conductresses. A small number of them who went at it with extreme single-mindedness were what I could only term psychotics. Certain drivers seemed psychologically unable to behave in any other way. They were, one and all, skilful drivers who by luck or judgement always seemed to get the better of you on the road. From that last sentence it will be observed that I wasn't one of the elite, simply one of the majority of drivers who indulged in the practice of tailing in a relatively minor way, who often found themselves raging impotently at finding a champion tailer coming after them. I used to wonder what happened when two of these psychos met up on the road.
    All that unnecessary expenditure of energy in bottled-up anger and frustration meant that it was very much a young man's game. The few older drivers, who almost without exception were ex-tram drivers, were usually regarded as deadbeats for conductors to avoid if possible. I too used to look on such men with scorn. But like others who became long service employees with more than five years in the job, I found that as I joined the ranks of the deadbeats it took all my energy to cope with the normal requirements of the work, with none to spare for these infantile games. With hindsight it can be seen that the strain created by the conditions imposed by some drivers with their predatory tactics, were probably a major cause of the unduly large number of them dying during their time in the job or soon after they retired, or had simply left. This is leaving aside the normal stresses of coping with passengers and traffic. It was noted with what can only be called 'curiosity' that the number of drivers who, in my time, reached retiral age could be counted on the fingers of one hand. One of these was Tommy Berney, he was what I would call a placid driver, but even he survived for less than a year after he retired at the age of 65.

On to page seven >

Photo Credits