OLD-TIME BUSMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 February 1930, Page 12

OLD-TIME BUSMEN

“MONKEY-BOARD” CONDUCTOR. Tales of ’busmen in the days of the old knifeboard, horse-drawn omnibuses, when conductors fo.ught each other in the streets for passengers, were told by Mr. Thomas Dale to a, representative of ttye “Sunday Express.” . . , Mr. Dale, who is sixty-three, joined the London General Omnibus Company in 1886, and will be retiring shortly. He is at present “skidding” instructor and unofficial “sergeant-major” at the company’s works at Chiswick. “The ’busmen of to-day are nothing but hot-house plants compared with us,” said Mr. Dale, casting a critical eye over a young conductor with pink cheeks and smooth hair, who entered the room as we were talking. - “Hot-house plants,” he said, “with good pay and a proper platform to stand on.” Mr. Dale explained that a conductor of 1886 had to stand on a “monkey board,” about the size of a tea-tray, and hang on as best he could with the aid of a strap. “We had four shillings and about three fights a day,” said Mr. Dale, “and we worked seventeen hours out of twenty-four. On my day off I used to drive the local fire-engine to earn a bit extra. "You had to be something of a boxer to be a successful conductor, because. London was full of rival omnibus .companies, and the man who took the least fares had the sack. When a fight’ occurred, the passengers would form a ring, and patronise the omnibus of the winner. “My route then was between Hammersmith and Liverpool Street. It took us between two and three hours, because, in the morning, we used to wait for special passengers to finish their breakfast, and my driver always had a drink at each stopping place. “He was paid six shillings a day as a driver, and used to spend four-and-sixpence a day on three-penny ‘dog’s noses’—pints of gin and beer. “Our greatest rivals at the time were the green ’buses,” he continued. “One morning a green ’un tried to pick up some of my passengers near the Albert Memorial. “I stepped down. He stepped down. Our drivers held our coats and bowler hats. I knocked the stuffing out of him in the first round, and my passengers cheered like mad. Gentleman made bets, and ladies screamed. “Then he turned and ran, and I chased him up the steps of the Albert Memorial. “When I returned all his passengers were on my ’bus, and I gave him another hiding dt the depot just to keep him quiet.” Mr. Dhle thinks that road manners were much better in the/eighties than they are now. “Our route was along the ‘Toffs’ road’ round Prince’s Gate,” he said, “and my driver and I knew all the ‘nobs’ —Garibaldi and Sir John Millais, the man who painted ‘Bubbles.’ “If they were driving out in their phaeton or landau we would pull up, and my driver would salute with his whip.

“And the passengers on top would take their hats off to any passing gentleman”. If a lady was driving her own phaeton behind us, I would kick the monkey-board twice, and my driver would stop to let her pass.”

Mr. Dale said that one of the greatest problems of a conductor in the ’eighties was how to fit a bustle into a ’bus.

“All the younger women wore bustles and the old women wore crinolines,” he explained. “Those who wore crinolines had to walk or hire a private carriage, and those who wore bustles had to be shoved through the omnibus door sideways. Sometimes the bustles were so large that they wouldn’t go in either way, and it was the conductor’s job to shut the bustles up like concertinas —without being familiar. A ticklish job.” concluded Mr. Dale, glaring through the window at a group of young conductors, “and more than those hothouse plants could do without being reported.”