176 ) I soon realised today would be a difficult one.

‘Thank you for waiting’ said the elderly woman’ who had just run across the road in front of the bus as it pulled out, her arms rotating like a demonic windmills, ‘Well it was either that or run you over’ I relied in my best having-a-joke-with-a-customer voice.

‘Where would you like to go’ I asked, ‘Oh anywhere’ came the reply, Oh bugger thought I, one of those. ‘Where’s you last stop driver’ she enquired? ‘Southsea’ I answered, ‘Then Southsea will do’ she finished.

She moved deeper in to the bus whilst rummaging through her handbag. This is a common ploy used my some older people in the hope the driver will give up waiting and start the journey eventually forgetting about them as time passes. I wasn’t in the mood this morning because I knew there was entertainment value here for the rest of my customers.

‘I’m afraid I can’t move off until I issue a ticket ma’am’ I called down the bus; she was at least a third of the way down the bus heading for a seat. She returned and handed over a plastic card to me. ‘I’m sorry’ I said, ‘this is a library card’ she took it back and produced another card, an AA car breakdown service card. I shuddered to think that she might just possibly own a car. ‘Sorry, this card is not the one’. Oh, I shall have to sit down and look for it’ she answered.

‘I won’t be able to move until I have some form of payment’ I told her ‘I’m almost 10 minutes late already, perhaps you would like to sit down on the bench in the bus stop and look for it, another bus will be here in a few minutes’ I tried as a last hope option whilst thinking I should have run her over in the beginning.

She returned and offered another card . . yep, you guessed it, a credit card. By now the next bus was rounding the corner. ‘The next bus has turned up ma’am, ‘I shall have to ask you to leave if you don’t have means of payment’, yes, cruel I know but I can’t carry anyone without a ticket, not worth risking my job for one little old lady.

‘Will this do driver’ she said offering up a five pound note? ‘Yes that would be perfect’ I replied and issued a ticket with the though in the back of my mind that she knew exactly what she was doing.

She got off in Bognor Regis, not even halfway; I knew Bognor was of some use after all.

It turned out that later that day I was to ask another customer to leave the bus. More on that later.

175) Brain: Manual not included.

It’s been an interesting week (at last). Had a bit of a chat with a construction worker today in Littlehampton, he had managed to park his van just off a mini roundabout where he had been working and was loading up his ‘men at work’ sign when I came around the corner in my bus, problem was, I couldn’t get between him and the traffic island without knocking down the Keep Left bollard, he took one look at me and said ‘You could get a bus thought there mate’ whereas I replied ‘No I can’t’, ‘Yes you can, just keep it straight, it’s simple’ he answered back, Now I certainly wouldn’t presume to doubt his judgement when it came to digging holes in the road but it was a little annoying that he felt he knew better than I the capabilities of driving a bus. I refused to move unless he was prepared to take full responsibility for the consequences. He declined this offer, loaded up his hire van and moved it forward; parking it directly on the zigzags of a pedestrian crossing, some expert then, the onlookers enjoyed it.

Thank you, Cheers mate, thanks driver are all things I am accustomed to but ‘thanks bloke’ is a new one to me.

The other day I was as happy as Larry (whatever the hell that’s meant to mean), there was noting left to ruin my day, until the last run back home. I boarded the passengers as normal (I’d left my silly hat at home) all were eager to get home, each had the right money (Bulls**t alert) and smiling (hitting the fan now) and we all sang a rousing chorus of Rule Britannia before we set off.

I had got no further than quarter of a mile before the water alarm went off. I soon discovered that removing the bulb from the dashboard didn’t stop the alarm, it was still shrieking (hmmm, reminds me of my honeymoon) and I had to turn back to the bus station for a top up, and put some water in the bus too. A chap from head office was also travelling on the bus but he shall remain nameless (Hi Dave) and he reminded me to take caution when removing the water cap, it being pressurised due to the boiling steam inside, at arms length with a wad of paper between my hand and the filler cap I slowly unscrewed it . . . . Nothing, not a hiss or hint of steam, we looked at each other and raised eyebrows in unison, (which is a small town just north of London in case you were wondering) Eyebrows still raised Roger Moore style. I poured in some of companies finest water (as passed by the management), it took lest than a litre to fill to the brim, our collective eyebrows were now on top of our heads, time for an expert opinion, not having one at hand we called for a mechanic.

I followed him around to the back of the bus, I had to, he was holding my hand, he opened up a side panel and uttered ‘hmmm’, nothing wrong there’ and closed it again, I then mentioned that it was actually the other bus behind us. He gave me a look (I still have it) and proceeded to prod about, ‘how far you going’ he asked, ‘Worthing’ I replied, ‘Oh . . . should be alright, run it back to worthing’, what I think he meant was that once it was past halfway it was someone else problem. By this time we had transferred the passenger to another bus that had come in and thankfully going the same way (possibly). We climbed back on board and tentatively set off homeward bound (no relation to Simon and Garfunkel intended).

I’d like to say the trip was uneventful, in fact I will. The trip was uneventful (there, I’ve said it), the bus behaved, I dropped of the chappie from head office (bye Dave) and carried on regardless until I got to an area known as Roundstone, from here it’s a short trip to the village of Ferring long the A259 a nice bit of duel carriageway but for one thing, they had closed the eastbound lanes for resurfacing . . . . bugger, I now had to travel north through the countryside many miles out of my way with a bus that could breakdown at any moment, and I though it would choose the time when I was greatest distance away to cause the most embarrassment, and just to confound it all, nothing happened.

174 ) No title (which is a title anyway, so that's an oxymoron then?)

I’m not one to speak ill of customers (my fingers were crossed when I wrote that) but today took the proverbial biscuit. Mum, dad and son (I’m assuming a great deal here) boarded in Bognor and I took one look at them and the sound of Duelling banjo’s filled the air, if you’ve not seen the film ‘deliverance’ then ‘squeal like a pig’ will mean nothing to you, because ‘Incest is a game the whole family can play’. As drivers we meet a lot of people who have problems be they physical or mental and we rarely bat an eyelid but never had I meet a family who were the spitting image of each other, were sooo loud and clapped every time the bus went round a corner and as for the other passengers, to a man they spent the entire journey looking out of the windows in complete silence.

Embarrassing incident: A while ago I had to run light to my start point and as is normal practice the sign on the front said ‘Out Of Service’ (only because I lost my sign that said ‘Leper bus’). Now of course, trundling down the road people just see a bus, they want a bus, they don’t care that one’s not due or that no lights are on inside, they will stick out their hands, walking sticks or false limbs to catch my attention come what may, and when we drive right past they curse and complain, I’m often tempted to stop and explain but I know they will jump on or cling to the side of the bus so on this one occasion I slowed down as I passed and pointed upwards at the sign saying Out Of Service when it occurred to me that it would look very much like I was ‘giving them the finger’ as our American cousins might say, from now on I shall just sail past staring fixedly at the road ahead (which would make a change).

173) Image from Havant Bus station rest room.

Sometimes I get that warm feeling, like a burst colostomy bag.

As I sat basking in the early morning sunshine at Chichester Bus Station I reflected on my life and thought . . . can I start again please?

Did you mother ever say to you 'Make sure you've got clean underwear on just in case you get run over by a bus', or is that just me? I guess the idea is that whilst your laying there on in the resus room at the hospital with pipes out of your nose hooked up to a machine that just goes 'ping' every second, a nurse is cutting your trousers off with a pair of scissors and says 'Oh doctor, try your best, he's wearing clean underwear'. Somehow I know this won't be the case, not at that end.

Well summers on it's way (I read it on an umbrella somewhere), a time when parking cones and road works blossom in to life whilst the workmen ever wary of the nasty ultra violet rays emitting from the big yellow thing in the sky stay in the van eating their sandwiches, waiting for the passing shadow of a cloud to wonder out and crowd around the hole pointing at nothing in particular.

One thing that did make me smile happen about a week ago in Littlehampton, for some reason they decided to re-seat the manhole covers on the bridge, usual deal, single lane, temporary traffic lights and two very long lines of traffic and to pacify the road users, a yellow sign saying 'delays possible, sorry for any inconvenience' which you only discover when you eventually reach the road works, way to late to take avoiding action. Someone had placed a hand made sign in front with the words . . . 'the man in charge is Mick, his phone number is' . . .

172)

I make no excuses, little has happened in the bus world that I haven’t already mentioned in the past and I’ve enjoyed the rest if I’m honest but perhaps it’s time to dust off the keyboard and knock out a few ‘a day in the life of a bus driver’ stuff.

The seaside town of Bognor Regis has always been the butt of jokes along with Littlehampton (insert sound effects of schoolboy giggles) but I have started a personal vendetta to remove Bognor from the map completely (just a large car park would be nice), Locals to the town may have read of an incident recently involving a bus, the local bowls club and a large brick pillar. To add insult to injury, Worthing will now be hosting the famous Birdman competition because we’ve got a bigger one, Pier that is, at least the end didn’t fall off ours!

Back to Bognor. There is a large section of the town that has a Bus Only road right in the middle, leading in to it is a narrow road with two large signs saying ‘Buses and cycles only’. Imagine my delight as I was just about to set off when I saw this car staring down this very road, I held back just enough for the car to pass the half way point, then I set off from the other end coming face to face with the errant car driver, my how I smiled down at him, my how embarrassed he looked and what a long distance he had to reverse.

Free bus passes go national. If you have a bus pass you are now no longer restricted to your home county, you can go ANYWHERE (except Scotland and Wales but who’d want to go there anyway) but there are some drawbacks and Worthing is one of them. Most places in the UK allow travel from 9am, not Worthing, oh no, it’s 9.30 and lump it matey, now here’s the twist, Worthing borders the village of Ferring which is a different time zone (in oh so many ways) and anyone waiting for the bus at 9am can get on, now those living on the ‘wrong side’ have cottoned on to this and of course walk that small distance to cross the border into Ferring, now here’s the rub as they used to say . . . .

There is a difference and it’s written on the passes so we still have to refuse travel to those that have ‘migrated’ because I’m afraid to reveal, many of the drivers can now read and know the difference. We do get a triad of curses and insults and no matter how much we tell the potential passenger that’s it’s the council that decides (you voted for them remember) and not the bus company, please don’t pick on me, I’m just doing my job.

‘I thought this was an every 10 minute service’ said the woman boarding the bus, ‘Yes’ replied I, ‘Well I’ve been waiting for half an hour now’ she retorts, ‘I’m sorry, there has been a bit of a delay due to the road works on the seafront’, She didn’t reply but offered up one of those looks that only women can, one of pure disbelief. Three stops later we join the end of the traffic jam at said road works. 43 minutes later we pass the obstruction (normally a 3 minute journey) and she gets off and I offer up my usual .thank you, have a lovely day’, strangely she didn’t reply.

Whilst on the subject of road works (very popular with drivers at the moment) why oh why do they open up a hole and then leave it for days, no workmen, no vans, nothing. And another thing, they put up the cones and barriers then pile in to the van and sit there having lunch! And just how many times have we seen one guy working and 4 guys watching . . . and another thing I’ve noticed . . . have you seen just how many vehicles are towing a trailer of some kind that has no number plate, or a hand written one or one that’s completely different from the vehicle towing it and often no working lights and in most cases the towing vehicle has the words ‘Highway Maintenance’ in large letters on the back, yep, it’s those guys who dig the bloody holes.

Rant over.

Jimmy (still not dead)

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!

170) Wish you were here (oh no you don't)

Way way back in 1987 there was a film called 'Wish you were here' starring Emily Lloyd and Tom bell (as opposed to Tinker bell) and it was filmed in my home town of Worthing, and not only that, a fair chunk was in the bus depot (then Southdown Buses) and the Dome cinema next door. I had to buy it of course, not because I'm some sort of bus nut, I'm just plain nosey.

Here's a clip from a bus training film made on the outskirts of London, no connection with the above, it amuses me.
Here