All that comes with it

Watching the local news the other day I was shocked and dismayed to discover that the 313 bus service to Holmfirth is to be discontinued. The report featured various elderly people talking about how the absence of the service would leave them isolated and cut off, unable to go into town to collect their pensions and buy their Werthers originals. To be honest my mind had drifted by that point, I was too busy mourning yet another facet of my youth which was silently being engulfed into the quicksand of history.

To be honest most of the time the 313 was pretty useless. It took such a tortuous route via various small villages and hamlets that it turned a twenty minute journey into one of nearly an hour. There were a multitude of other buses which were much more efficient: the 309, 310 and 311 to name but three. In fact the only time you might consider getting the 313 in daylight hours would be at half three in the afternoon. At this time all the other routes were temporarily transformed into duel purpose public/school bus services.

I can still remember the overwhelming feelings of helpless despair when your previously calm and civilized bus made that dreaded lunge through the high school gates. Admonishing yourself for getting on the damn thing in the first place, you would fly into damage limitation mode. Top of the list of priorities was to ensure you were not sat on either the top deck or at the back of the bus. These are areas which degenerate into feral lord of the flies type scenarios within mere seconds of the kids getting on. An unwary bystander can find himself the unwitting victim of a hurled geography textbook, uneaten packed lunch, or unfortunate first year without any prior warning whatsoever.

No matter where you were sat however you were in for a rather unpleasant journey. The barbarism of Genghis Khan’s mongol hordes were nothing compared to five dozen school kids on a West Yorkshire bus. Here they existed in a sort of limbo state, freed from the supervision of their teachers but not yet under the jurisdiction of their parents. It was pure unadulterated anarchy. During my own school days the lawlessness of it all was too much for me and I chose to walk a mile and a half to and from school in order to excuse myself from the mayhem. Even then I was not truly safe from the nihilism. I once received a particularly well aimed full pot of yogurt on my head from the top deck of a passing school bus. The emotional scars from this are yet to heal.

But I had it easy. I can only imagine the horror of being the driver on such routes. I envisage them slumping exhausted in the staff canteen at the end of their shift, their once smart and clean uniform soiled with countless spitbombs, their voice hoarse from shouting repeated appeals for clemency, and their souls tarnished from the knowledge that children are indeed the future. And then in walks the driver of the 313, smugly surveying all around him and gently chortling to himself at his colleagues beleaguered state. But the other drivers know he won’t be laughing long. He may have escaped being the school bus, but karma exists in the world of public transportation. What goes around, comes around. At 11pm the 313 turns into the drunk bus.

More tomorrow.