Back on the buses!

Well it is now July 1977 and am back on the job and this time for good. I did not know that at the time of course but to be honest it felt like coming home. I still had a lot of friends on the job, my father still worked there and I was well known so the was no problem settling in.

Mark was five years old now and for the last three years or so I had seen him every day at about 12.30 onward but now he was starting school anyway so not being home quite as much was not a problem.

And when you worked for a bus company in those days overtime was part of the deal to earn a decent wage. We lived in a council house and had all the usual bills to pay so I,like most of my contemporaries worked 13 out of 14 days and overtime on several of them and thought nothing of it as it was part of life then.

I have to say that even today there are many drivers who work a lot of overtime. Not so many as in those days but it is not uncommon to work long hours in our industry although the laws have been tightened up now.

I still had my bus driving licence of course so went in as a driver straight away. We were still operating crew and one man operating buses back then and I went in with conductors for a while until a space became available on the OMO shifts. The years away had brought in more routes that were one man operated and many conductors had taken the driving test and were driving the new routes.

The old hands who would not drive one man buses were really on the way out and as the years passed all routes were changed to that type of operation.

As I have said in an earlier blog, I have always taken pride in my driving and it was put to good use the year after I came back. Drivers were invited to have a go at the 'bus driver of the year' competition and I decided to have a go at it. This was the local South Wales event to get into the nationals and through luck and a bit of skill I took first place in my area so I represented my company in the national event in Blackpool that year.

More on this and more in the next blog.