RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29911, 27 August 1962, Page 14

RANDOM REMINDER

ALL CHANGE, PLEASE

Being a bus driver can seldom be the romantic pursuit small boys imagine it to be. It must tend to be monotonous, sheer drudgery—the clink of change, exhaust fumes, squealing brakes,

the stopping and starting, all the time. Policemen do not rush to bus drivers and shout "Follow that car!” Bus drivers can not pick up young ladies in distress, fling them over the bonnet and charge off into the night. And bus drivers must sometimes yearn for romance. Early in the war years there was one driver, who had been on a suburban run since it started, and who made a practice of slowing almost to a stop outside a garden gate, so that a young airman who visited his betrothed

each evening could rush out, hurdle the "fence, catch the bus, and be in Cathedral Square in time for the last trip to Wigram. But, in general, bus drivers have dull lives.

Of course, bus passengers have their difficulties too. Lurching and bumping, often crushed, running connexions, seeing the same stupid faces all the time. But on the whole, sympathy is with the driver, and the man who was driving from the Square on a recent Saturday afternoon may be forgiven for an extraordinary performance. A man came up the steps of the bus and presented a* florin when asking for a fare which would cost lid. The driver stared moodily at the coin for a

moment, then thrust an unhappy forefinger among the little collection of change in his tray. He looked up and began a laborious mental calculation. When it was resolved, he asked the passenger if he had a penny. The man produced four of them. The driver looked at them disbelievingly. He made another stubby inventory of his change, and went off again into a trance, while the cinema crowds shuffled about uneasily on the pavement. Then his eyes gleamed with resolve, he had made up his mind “You'd better take th« next bus” he said.

And what happened? The Transport Board lost lid in revenue. But a taxi driver was better off by 7s 6d.