CARS DRAWN BY MULES

Evening Star, Issue 20993, 6 January 1932, Page 9

CARS DRAWN BY MULES

MEMORIES OF OLD DAYS Mr Larry May has fought Zulus. And ho has driven mule trains in the Old. Kent Road. He found the former less exacting. At eighty-three Mr May has just retired from the London County Council tramways to his daughter’s home in West Norwood. He was England’s oldest tram driver, Fiftv years ago, at tho end of tho Zulu War, Mr May left South Africa, where death had looked him in the face more than once, and he had looked on the face of Cetewayo, a king even in captivity. In London Mr May joined the London Tramways Company, which, just started, owned sixteen niackeralbacked ” cars pulled by mules. Tbe mules, small and tough, but bad-tem-pered, had ideas of their own about tram tracks. They used to drag the cars off the rails and stroll down the highways, kicking at lamp posts and pedestrians. , The mules were not Mr May s only trouble. At night he often needed protection from “ toffs ” from the Surrey Theatre in the Blackfriars road in rag efforts to get control of the tram. Mr May and his comrades worked thirteen hours a day, including Sundays, for from 4s 9d to 6s a day. They bought their own clothes, and even their own driving seats, which they were only allowed to have after a six months’ proof that they knew all about horses and mules.