Holiday's Busman A book by Hugh Dougherty

The Scotsman

Holiday's Busman A book by Hugh Dougherty   Tales of a 1970s west of Scotland bus conductor: My drunken driver pulled a knife on me after crash New book recalls On the Buses era antics in Ayrshire and Renfrewshire half a century ago   The colourful life of a rookie west of Scotland bus conductor in the 1970s is vividly recalled in a new book that included a flick knife being pulled on him by his drunken bus driver after a crash.  Hugh Dougherty recalled that bus inspectors would jump out of roadside bushes to catch wayward staff, who in turn called passengers "punters" because of the gamble they took by stepping aboard.  Dougherty, 74, tells of his adventures working weekends as a conductor, then driver, while a student at Glasgow University in Holiday’s Busman - Working on the Western SMT 1969-72, published by Stenlake.  Hugh Dougherty with his old bus ticket machine and new book Hugh Dougherty with his old bus ticket machine and new book | Hugh Dougherty Based at the Mearns and Thornliebank garages on the southern edge of Glasgow, the company’s routes took him as far as Paisley, Ardrossan, Kilmarnock, and Ayr.  Dougherty said: “Starting conducting as a naïve 18 year-old was much more of an education than I ever got at university. I had to learn fast to think on my feet, keep my balance on a speeding bus, know the fare tables, handle my ticket machine and handle myself, when trouble called, too.  “We had everyone from the douce matrons of Newton Mearns angling for a cheap fare to the drunken mob which invaded the bus on the ‘Last Ardrossan’ - the most dreaded shift in the garage - on Saturday nights.  “They came on at the Maple Leaf Inn at Ardrossan, crammed both decks, singing and shouting, and worse, and went all the way to Johnstone. It was survival on that shift.”  Scotland relies on its transport links - stay informed with our Transport newsletter  Dougherty said the knife incident was one of his worst experiences. He recalled being confronted by the “alcoholic” driver he was with on one shift, who “drove like a maniac” and took the side off a car while trying to undertake it on Cathcart Bridge in Glasgow.  Later, when Dougherty told the driver, after he asked, what he would put in his accident report, the conductor said he had “pulled out a flick knife and threatened to ‘do’ me”.  The conductor wrote “survival instinct took over, as in all situations on the buses” and he waved his ticket machine in the driver’s direction “leaving him in no doubt that I meant business, shouted at him to back off, which, incredibly, he did ... as I collapsed in a terrified heap on the back seat”.

Transcript

00:00I'm Alistair Dalton, the Scotsman's transport correspondent at the Glasgow Vintage Vehicle

00:05Trust at Bridgeton in the East End of Glasgow. I'm here to talk to Hugh Doherty, an author who's

00:13written a book about his experience as a conductor and driver in the 1970s while a student at Glasgow

00:21University and he comes across with some fairly extraordinary and hair-raising experiences.

00:28I'm Hugh Doherty, I'm a former conductor and driver on the Western SMT and I'm here to tell you all about

00:35that. It was quite daunting, I came from a douce middle-class Irish Catholic home and suddenly I

00:41was thrust into another world where there was a lot of conflict between passengers or punters as we

00:47called them and the crews. You had to know the fair stages, you had to know how the ticket machine worked,

00:53you had to understand what a driver taught me and it was called passenger psychology and that helped

00:59you get through the day and to deal with the punters when they became awkward shall we say and they were

01:06all out for a cheap fare and you had to watch that. I didn't give a half fare as it was known, keep the

01:12ticket jimmy in Glasgow in which the conductor didn't ring up a ticket and half the cost with the person,

01:18one over against the company, one over for the punter. They all got tickets from me, like most

01:25good conductors did anyway and this guy decided when I gave him his ticket that he was going to hit me in the face

01:32with a bottle. I'm wearing a speeding bus going through towards Nitzhill to Barhead, a Friday night, I'm 18,

01:39it's years I think I lasted a fight when I was at school years ago and he smashed the bot on for a

01:46minute. I thought to myself, he's coming for me and then I thought this isn't happening to me and then

01:52I got my ticket machine off the back plate and lumped him with it and that solved the problem. I'm not

01:57proud of that but in those days there was no training in how to deal with that sort of situation,

02:03no radios and he ended up going out the back of the bus and the driver told me at the Nielsen terminus,

02:10it's okay I didn't see anybody coming out the back of the bus, we'll just keep quiet about this. And the

02:15most remarkable thing is the other punters on the top deck just sat there and looked out the windows

02:20as if nothing had happened. I was a shaking wreck by the time I got home and I remember my mommy said,

02:26why are you not eating your dinner son? And it was pretty obvious why I wasn't. One night heading up to

02:31Mernskirk on a Saturday night when I was working at the weekends from university, I had a driver who

02:37actually was an alcoholic. This was known in the garage but he was still let out in the road.

02:43Round halfway up the route he took the side off a woman's car and claimed it was her fault and when

02:50we got up to the terminus he said to me, you're going to write that report and tell the truth as

02:55I'm certainly going to tell the truth, you hit the woman's car, at which point he took out a flick knife

03:01and we were up at Mernskirk, it's dark, there's nobody around, just him and me and he was a really

03:08tough wee character. I thought this is it, he's coming for me so good old set right chicken machine,

03:13held it up and said come on pal more or less and luckily that worked, I just went back in the cab,

03:20never saw him again, he was sighted the next day thank god and I got a really nice young guy and we had a

03:25great shift together after that. The inspectors in our garage were nice guys, once they knew you did

03:31your job that was fine, they left you alone and they knew you didn't fiddle, they would compliment

03:36you and your first stage has all been correct and they were great but the company had the van as it

03:42was called and the van had two very nasty inspectors in it, their job was to catch you out on the road in

03:50the middle of nowhere and one in particular would suddenly jump out in the bushes on their drosson

03:55road round about the beach, they'd just come out the bushes, stop the bus, on you came, snatched your

04:00waybill from you, told the clippy she was, told the driver I was conducting at that time, told the driver

04:07he was running two minutes early, he was getting booked, told me as the conductor that if he found

04:11anything he would get me and in one famous location made me take all the luggage out to see if I had

04:17charged for a pushchair, luckily I had. There also was an inspectress who had taught me in the conducting

04:24school in Paisley, who went out in Paisley wearing a wig and glasses and she would erupt from the seat

04:31and say I've got you pal and get the conductor, maybe just for something as simple as the wrong first

04:36stage in a ticket. So we had nasty hats as we called them and we had decent hats and we always knew

04:43where they were because if your driver put the lights in and out three times you knew there was

04:50a hat at the next bus stop, if the bus going past the driver did that with his hands you knew that

04:55the van was on the road and if he did that it meant the hat was on his bus, so we always knew where they

05:00were. That's before radios and phones we had our own tic-tac system. Well you had to know the jargon

05:06because the first day I worked I said passengers and the Clippy who was training me said punters and

05:13because they come on here and they gamble with their lives and we look after them and they're

05:19all a bit daft and so I thought punters and then we stopped at the side of the road, the driver was

05:25early and I said what's going on now? He said we're hanging it up and to hang it up meant to hang it up and

05:31this is you waited your time until it was time to go into the next timing point and you kept the bus

05:36engine running and the punters are all getting really mad inside which was good fun it was good

05:41to annoy them because they thought you were just trying to keep them late whereas you were just

05:44making sure you weren't booked for running early. If the bus was full you had a full swinger and if you

05:52were really busy going through it you would say to somebody I was gutted, that meant it had been

05:57really busy going through it and they also there were other words hat for inspector and you had to

06:04know all these words and a set right checking machine was not a set right checking machine

06:09but your punch and the punch name went back to the earliest days of the old bell punch machines that

06:15they used originally and a conductor or conductors was a guard which was a railway term but we talked

06:21about guards and the conductors were all the girls didn't matter what age they were and they didn't

06:25think that was sexist they thought that was fine and by god were these strong women nobody messed

06:32about with our conductresses they really could sort a bus of unruly punters out in two seconds and we

06:39admired them for that so it has its own language its own culture its own signs and you had to be a real

06:45busman to be steeped in that and by the time I left the bus in 72 I was and after I left I was just a punter.

06:53Hugh you went on from being a conductor to a driver and this is one of the buses that you would have

07:00driven back in the day what was that experience like? Well it was quite frightening when I'd conducted

07:06I thought that was quite easy driving so I had three lessons and passed my PSV test and two days after

07:13I sat my final exam at university I found myself sitting as we said in Quality Street that meant the other

07:20driver said Hughie son you've moved up to Quality Street you're now one of us you're no longer a guard

07:26it was absolutely terrifying because I'd hardly driven a bus and I was sent out in about two days

07:33after having shunted buses or taken ones out for replacements in the road to drive all the way to

07:39Earned back in one of these buses now they were great buses they were very very good to drive they were

07:45solid in the road and they were known as flyers because the air road was a very very fast road

07:52and before we left my conductor big Ian looked at my shoes he held them up and said I'm just checking

07:58to see if you've got heavy boots on son because we need to boot it on and indeed we did boot it on

08:04but it was quite frightening because at 21 I could see the headlines student driver kills 50 and there was

08:10some very difficult driving in those days on the old a77 long before the motorway you to go out across

08:17the main road on one of these and as you changed from first to second gear the bus nearly stopped

08:24and then picked up you shuddered across the road it was terrifying but I got used to it and I got to enjoy it

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