On my return to civilian life I tried a variety of occupations, with varying degrees of satisfaction, either to myself or to my erstwhile employer.
—
Firstly, a couple of tales from my time as a conductor for London Transport. The first of these occurred one afternoon at Petts Wood, a very affluent and, to be honest, “toffee-nosed” area. A group of tiny, pre-school children, were ushered onto the bus by a nursery-school teacher, and would be collected by “Mummy” at their destination. Each of these children was clutching the necessary coins, which I duly collected and issued a ticket. Most were quite polite and well-mannered, except for one! “Three-ha’penny!” he demanded. “And what else?”, I enquired. “Nothing else” piped this half-pint. “Don’t you usually say “please”?” “Not on a bus!” he replied! What a charming young man he must have become!
—
The second incident provided, I hope, a salutary lesson for the man in question. It was late at night and we pulled up at Locks Bottom, near Bromley. A man staggered onto the platform, obviously totally “drunk and incapable”. He gave me his fare, saying “Orpington Post Offish, tell me when we git there”. This was a distance of some four miles, and as I rang the bus off, he stood at the edge of the platform, throwing up into the road. I decided that I was not going to put up with this, so I rang the bell for the first request stop, which was about 400 yards from where he had boarded. “There you are,” I told him, “Orpington Post Office”. He tumbled off the bus, and waving his arms about, shouted “Fanks mate”. As we went off down the road, I swore to myself that I would never get into a state in which someone could do that to me!
—
A much happier experience occurred on the evening of Christmas Eve, 1957. I was the conductor of a No. 119 bus, heading towards Bromley. There was not a single passenger on board, probably because most people were already enjoying themselves at various parties and pubs. This was just a couple of weeks before my twenty-second birthday, and you will understand that there were things I would rather have been doing, than wasting the evening in this way! We pulled up at Hayes Station and, lo and behold, a passenger! And what a passenger! Female, young, pretty, smiling and alone! “Perhaps there is a God, after all” I thought!
She opted for the upper deck, and I went up to collect her fare! I looked around, and found her smiling at me from the back seat! As I approached, she said, with an impish grin, “You ought to have some mistletoe!” “Why would I need mistletoe?” I replied, ridding myself of the encumbrance of the ticket machine. I squeezed in beside this little sweety, and we spent the rest of the journey to Bromley North in a clinch on the back seat!
When we arrived at the end of the journey, my driver, Joe, was out of his cab and round to the platform in a flash. Just in time, in fact, to catch me kissing her one last time, before she tripped off down the road to her party! I never did get her fare! “Ah,” said Joe, with a grin “I wondered why I’d been getting the buzzer, instead of the bell, all the way from Hayes!”
—
I worked for several years as a laboratory assistant for a plastics and building products company. I had a great deal of fun, and also learnt a lot of things which were to be of use to me in later life. They were a friendly and witty crowd with whom I fitted in very well. One chap, in particular, was a great practical joker, and was always ready with a smart remark. I have to say that I seldom heard him bettered when it came to the usual sort of banter. Alex, as he was called, was on one occasion employing his wit at the expense of a younger chap, by the name of Gordon, whom, it has to be said was nowhere near in the same league. That is, until he said, “Alex, if you don’t shut up, I shall tell all these blokes what I saw in the solvent hut!” Alex went very quiet, and became deeply engrossed in his work! Well, your guess is as good as mine!
—
The majority of my working life was spent as a driver / library assistant on a mobile library. For about a year of this time, I had working with me, a young woman who was a newly qualified Librarian. Her name was Jane, and I can honestly say that she was the most air-headed person I have ever known. On one occasion, whilst attending to a reader at the counter, she informed him that he owed a fine, for overdue books. The man took a handful of change from his pocket and, looking down, transferred the appropriate coins from one hand to the other. When he looked up and offered her the money, he got no response! He looked over to me, with an understandable expression of puzzlement on his face. “Jane!” I said sharply. She awoke with a start, not knowing where she was. After a second or two, she said, “Oh, my mind went a complete blank!” She had, literally, fallen asleep in those few seconds while the reader was counting out the fine.
—
The vehicle in which we worked was very cold in the winter months, in spite of the best efforts of the inadequate heating system. This was not helped by our having to keep the public doors open whilst we were working. One evening, we were at one of our busiest stops, with a full complement of readers choosing their books. Suddenly, Silly Jane, as she soon came to be known, said to me in her loud piercing voice, “What we need, is one of those brassieres in the middle of the floor!” All the readers heard this gem, and they all turned and gazed at her in astonishment! I replied, sotto voce, “I’m sorry Jane, I don’t understand”. Again the piercing cry “You know, one of those brassieres!” I was thoroughly confused by now, and the readers were convulsed with mirth. I was still at a complete loss to know what the stupid girl was going on about when she tried again. “You know, one of those big buckets with holes in the sides that you burn coke in”. The penny dropped! “Oh, I see, you mean a brazier!” “Yes,” she persisted “a brassiere”. I found some urgent work to attend to, at the back of the van!
—
Fortunately, this girl was soon gone and I found myself operating a one-man service for a large proportion of each week. One of the places I visited weekly was Greathed Manor, a large country house which was divided into apartments, specifically for rich, elderly people. There were several among them who rejoiced in the title of Sir this, or Lady that and they were mostly ex-Colonial Service types or former armed services officers. They were all absolute caricatures of their type. As is usually the case with elderly people, they were mainly women who had outlived their husbands. There was, though, a sprightly and dapper little Welshman who took great delight in causing as much apoplexy as possible among these dowagers. He never used the library, but always came in to see me, and to pass the time of day, whilst at the same time making whatever mischief he could! On the day in question, one of these old girls asked me if I could find her “a good ‘beeography'”. I looked along the shelves and came up with the autobiography of a well-known broadcaster of the time. “I don’t want to read that!” she snorted, “Dreadful man. Left his wife and six children and went orf with some young gel!” Our little Welshman gave me a conspiratorial smile, and said, “Ooh, these girls, they do tempt!” The old girl turned on him, spitting fire. “It’s not the girls, it’s you shhtupid men!” she spluttered. He winked at me, said “Good morning”, and left the van with the satisfied air of a man who had achieved his ambition for yet another day.
—
A very different type of incident occurred one afternoon, when the mobile library was open for business at South Godstone, in Surrey. We were parked in a turning off the A22, which is the main thoroughfare through the village. Our stopping place was outside a shop on the left, about fifty yards from the main road and facing away from it. Suddenly, I heard a car coming up the A22 at high speed and, with a squeal of tyres it turned into the road where we were parked. Then, to my amazement, it made a hair-raising left-turn across the front of my vehicle, and careered up the drive beside, and belonging to the shop. In so doing it crossed the footpath, where a number of women with children were walking to and from the library. It carried out this manoeuvre at about 40 m.p.h. and drove straight into a garage at the far end of the drive, some fifty yards from the road. From my twenty years experience of working in the area, I knew that this car did not belong to the shop owners.
I did not have long to wonder what was happening because, almost immediately a police motorcyclist came roaring in from the main road, straight past my van and hell-for-leather down the road. He soon realised that his quarry had given him the slip, so turned round and came speeding back. I jumped from my cab, flagged him down, and pointed out where this toe-rag was hiding, still in the car. He was suitably grateful and roared up the drive to make his arrest. Very soon more police vehicles turned up, and this young tearaway was hauled off in handcuffs.
The police motorcyclist told me that a gang had been disturbed whilst carrying out a theft of silver and other valuables from a house in Horley. The man I had helped to catch later received a jail sentence for his part in the burglary. What was more disturbing to me, though, was that it was only by chance that he had not killed someone as he made for his hiding place. He had no connection with the shopkeepers in whose garage he hid, but he obviously had it worked out, and but for my intervention, I think he might have got away with it!