Hold Tight! - Specials
 
Chapter 6
 
Page 49
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Hold Tight!
Chapter 6
Southampton
35 Fans
36 Smash hits
37 New money
38 Eastleigh
39 Tight squeeze
40 Romsey
41 Hythe
42 Holy city
43 Docks tours
44 Fawley & Calshot
45 Kids and animals
46 Hot stuff
47 Police, stop
48 Flic storys
49 Specials
50 Just sack me!
51 Machine wars
52 Not funny
53 Borrowing
54 Demon drink
55 One for the road
56 Disputes
Chapters
1 Beginnings
2 Learning
3 Getting Away
4 Winchester
5 Freedom
6 Southampton
7 City Transport
 
<< Back Schools, works and events. Next >>
Not police specials but school and works specials.
Works journeys fell into two categories. Those where the firm paid the full cost of the bus so we did not collect fares and those where the firm made up the difference between the fares collected and the cost of laying on the bus. On the first type we only carried workers from the firm involved while on the second we picked up other passengers along the way.
School buses were of the same two types. Passengers would get on a school service and then complain about the children.
One school special for primary school children but not on service to passengers ran between Worthy Down army camp and North Walls in Winchester. There were no fares to collect but the children had to be counted. There were about 120 on a 60 seat bus.
Fights would break out but the conductor dare not leave the platform to sort out the problem. If he did, he would return to find children hanging out of the back of the bus, trying to knock their brains out against passing road signs. The mothers would complain bitterly if little Johnny arrived home with a cut eye or a bloody nose.
Other specials ran for events such as the New Forest Show where we ran a shuttle service between Brockenhurst train station and the show ground.
Not strictly a special, we ran buses between the Central Station and the channel car ferries. Many people arriving in the country from France had only large denomination English bank notes. As I used to make frequent trips across the channel, I would carry no change on these journeys but I did have my own fare chart in French francs. This made sure that I always had plenty of change in French money, all I had to do was pay in the fares in sterling from my own pocket.
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