A life on the Buses.
So what have the last nearly forty years been like with most of the spent working for Cardiff Bus? On the whole it has not been to bad at all with some great friends being made.
Of course I did not start out meaning to spend most of my life on public transport. That is never how it is supposed to be is it? I joined the firm first of all in 1969 because I just lost a job, and asked my father who worked as a Inspector to put a word in for me. In those days that was the way that it was done. That lasted for four years and in that time I had moved from a conductor to a driver and then as a one man driver. That was the start of One Man operation and of course today virtually all buses are operated this way.
But as an employee I have to say that I was not that good at getting up in the morning. In fact to put it bluntly I was bloody awful! By the time I came to leave in 1973 I think that they were glad to see the back of me. My father was doing the job that I do now, and even he sent me home one day after getting in late for work.
I left in 1973 and did other jobs for four years, but could not settle and for some strange reason wanted to get back with the company again. I applied for a job and eventually was shown my record card, and that had in large letters, ‘Not to be re-employed’ across it. I told you I was bad didn’t I? Well by this time I had a young son and needed a job to feed him, so once again I asked Dad to use the old boy’s network. The Manager of the company was an old mate of his, and he bought me into his office and made it quite clear that bringing me back was a big favour to Dad and if I messed up again I would be out on my ear and very quickly.
But by now four years later I had grown up a bit and settled down to the job and I think did quite well. I went straight in as a One Man driver and quickly moved to the ‘out of town’ routes such as Penarth and Tredegar. You had to be well regarded to get those so I must have been doing OK. I also entered the ‘Bus Driver of the Year’ competition and won the South Glamorgan shield twice and runner up once.
After five years driving, I felt that I would like a move into Inspector and applied for that. I was made up in 1982 and started checking tickets on the buses. We went through the coldest winter I can remember the next winter and I bought the first and only pair of thermal long johns I have ever had!
I can remember one day running up stairs to check tickets. As I bobbed up a passenger said. ‘Oh God’! as I startled her. I said ‘no but you are close, tickets please’! It was not a bad life but you soon tired of checking tickets, and needed the next level.
So by that time I had made a friend of Dave Morgan who was a Desk Inspector. He had been doing it for years and was getting fed up. I started learning the job from him and now and again we swapped jobs with him getting out in the fresh air and me behind the desk signing the staff on and giving out overtime and rest days etc. It must be in the blood because by this time although my Father had retired, I took to the job like a duck to water.
It was not all Desk Inspector though as I went into the Radio Control room for a while and worked as a Bus Station Inspector as well. And that is where in 1988 I had my worst day ever on the buses……
It was a Sunday morning and I was working on the Bus station in Cardiff. It was a quiet day and I had to get a defect bus changed at our depot two miles away. There were no drivers spare, so I decided that I would do it myself. It was no problem and it was something we all did as a part of our job. I drove to the depot and changed the bus and on my way again. But this day something else happened. My wife had been very ill as I went to work and I was a bit worried about her and this was on my mind. I took the wrong route back to town and in doing so took a 13’ bus under a 12’ bridge…..
The whole of the top deck came off in one piece. Bloody Hell what a mess! It was an absolute disaster and it was lucky that no-one was behind me or I could have killed them. To cut a very long story short, I was automatically dismissed from the company then because of my good record was given my job back. But I lost a promotion and a year upgraded salary so it was a very expensive crash.
The next year Dave Morgan retired and I applied for and was given his job. Perhaps they just wanted me off the road…..
And basically that is what I am doing now. There have been massive changes in the way that we do things, such as the introduction of the Grampian computer system to the job. We have had the section reformed and now are in charge of drivers wages. Huge changes but on the whole I still thoroughly enjoy the job and get on well with staff and hope to continue here until I retire in 2013.
One thing that I think is worthy of a mention here is the way I was looked after when I became seriously ill about five years ago. I suffered a slipped disc and could not go to work. If I had been left to the tender mercies of the NHS then treatment could have lasted up to four years as the waiting lists are massive for this type of operation. That would mean that my job would go as no company could afford someone of sick for that length of time.
The firm paid for a MRI scan to check what the problem really was, then when that had been proved, a private operation would cost £7500. They put one third toward that cost and lent me another third interest free and I had to find the other third. You could argue that I had given them 25 years of good service and would after the operation give another 10 but many companies would not have gone that far. In the end I was off for nine months and after a large private operation back in harness. So yes I am grateful to Cardiff Bus for the way that I was looked after in a very bad time for me.