Personal memories 1
B H &D 70th Anniversary
A B.A.T.S.
From a former Conductress
Following an appeal in a local Brighton newspaper `The Evening Argus` on Monday 14 November 2005 requesting personal memories and anecdotes from people who have once worked for Brighton Hove & District, the following account has been given by a lady who has asked to remain anonymous.
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``I was a bus conductress between 1945 and 1947 and was based at Whitehawk garage. My main duty was on routes 1 and 2, which were interworked. At the time the buses were the open staircase A.E.C. Regents. Heavy slip boards (that advertised the bus route) were carried on the vehicle sides and often drivers would help us change these at the Portland Road terminus. At this terminus there was a regulator, a man who was possibly an ex-policeman who would blow his whistle very hard to signal our departure from here. We were permitted to cross the railway line for use of public house toilets and we were able to get a cup of tea, hoping that the level crossing gates would close to give us a longer break time. As a conductor, we used the Punch tickets which were carried in a
rack. If you were not allocated to a route, you would be sent across to Conway Street depot as a `standby`, sometimes spending the entire shift there. The worst route was the late turn on route 3 which had a reputation for being rough. Often the men, having turned out from the pubs and bars would hang on the back of the buses to try and avoid paying a fare or else would give us money but refused to take the ticket. As a conductor you would work one week on early shift, one week late, staying with the same driver for two-week periods. A number of the conductresses would exchange duties in order to work with a particular driver as romantic liasons developed. Possibly the Company either did not know about this or else turned a `blind eye` so long as the bus ran on time.``
would change upstairs with all the boys downstairs. At the end of game play, the reverse journey route I cannot recall, ensured we were all changed back in to our school clothes, no recollection of showering or such niceties back then, again girls upstairs.
So on the bus front, I can recall it was really cold for the boys in winter as we had an open platform bus, I thought they were Bristol Ks but maybe my memories mistaken, being Lodekkas for that period. I have some fond memories of the female games teacher causing problems, letting girls stay downstairs.
Later from 1970-1975 I travelled to secondary school on Lodekkas, and I recall my first bad experience of buses, where the driver moving off before shutting the doors at Coleridge Street, he was looking the other way and I got my arm trapped in the doors and fell off as he went north towards the Railway Bridge. No one helped and it was never mentioned.
I would really like to see a photo of a bus standing at Wish Pond Park, and may well have been both K and LD/FS during that period 1966-70.``
From a former school pupil
Gordon Dinnage recalls his school years and the experience of how school journeys by bus has changed in the last four decades. BATSAboutBuses gratefully acknowledges Gordon`s permission to publish his account.
``During the period 1966-1970 I was at my second primary school, which was located in George Street itself, in Hove. I have great memories of all the classes had a `games` time. As the school only had a hard standing playground and an overgrown grave yard, which is now the Tesco car park and new school field, we had to go to Wish Park for our physical education lesson, a good half a mile or more.
We always took a BH&D double decker from somewhere outside the school, along Church and New Church Roads then turned down Saxon Road, where the bus stopped just at the first entrance to the park. During the outbound journey the girls
