Ding, ding, hold very tight please!

One conductor that I worked with for a while was always looking for any way to avoid actually doing what he was employed and paid for - collecting the appropriate fare from passengers and ensuring that his end of the bus was conducted in an orderly fashion!

This particular day saw us at Hammond Street about six miles north of Waltham Cross. There was about ten minutes stand time before we were due off again so time for a quick cuppa from the ancient Transit mobile caff that was there during the day. I wandered and got the teas in while Dougie went to view the countryside about a hundred yards away from the other side of the hedge. A few minutes later he rejoined me and we sat slurping and chatting until our departure time.

As i walked round the front of the bus to get into the cab it seemed to have a slightly lop-sided appearance, closer investigation revealed that the offside front tyre was flat. Obviously a phone call to the engineers at Ponders End Garage was needed so ambled off to the nearest phone box at the Rising Sun pub a good quarter of a mile away.

The conversation with the engineering foreman was the usual terse affair with me being told that we would have to wait as the early engineering shift was about end and the late shift had yet to start work.

Having broken the good news to Dougie we adopted Plan B, have another cup of tea, a fag and wait patiently in the warm afternoon sun, Dougie seemed to have a slight incontinence problem that afternoon and ambled off to admire the countryside again. He reckoned that it was a stroke of good fortune that the tyre was flat at the very time that the early and late engineering shifts were changing over and that we would be further delayed because of this inconvenience. He then just dropped into the conversation that as we were due to finish our duty at Ponders End on the way back from our destination at Warren Street, near the GPO Tower, that with a bit of luck, there would be insufficient time for us to go anywhere apart from back to the garage.

Some fifty minutes elapsed before the repair crew arrived in a type of bus that was not used on this particular route so we could not swap vehicles and continue on our merry little way. A very large trolley jack and spare wheel was unloaded and the mechanics jacked up the front of the bus and then looked slightly perplexed.

"Where's the wheel brace," asked one.

"Dunno, you chucked it on" came the reply.

A search of the other bus revealed no trace of the missing tool.

"Better phone the shed then" said one, so they drove their bus down to the pub to make the necessary and probably slightly embarrassing call. It is probably discreet not to speculate on the actual dialogue during this interaction as it may well have contained what is politely known as 'industrial language'.

A polite enquiry upon their return elicited the fact that another bus was being despatched from the garage with a wheel brace, Again it would be impolite to my readers to quote the reply verbatim.

Around thirty minutes later yet another bus of unsuitable type arrived with a driver and his mate. Why two fitters you may ask? Simple, the bus was of a traditional London open platform type and the second employee was aboard to ensure that potential passengers did not leap aboard at traffic lights etc and also ensure that the wheel brace did not fall of the back of the bus.

A further twenty minutes elapsed before we were able to continue our interrupted journey. Eventually we reached our home depot to be told by the inspector on duty that it was pointless resuming our duty as there was insufficient time left to achieve anything useful. So we knocked off twenty minutes early and celebrated with another cuppa in the canteen. Whilst enjoying the delights of London Transport tea Dougie took out his diary along with which a tyre dust cap complete with valve key on the end fell to the floor. I retrieved it and just smiled as I handed it back to him ...