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CONVERSATION ON A BUS

My business in town was finished before I had expected it to be and there was forty minutes to wait. I bought a newspaper intending to read it in the bus shelter until it was time to leave. I had not travelled on the bus before but had seen it many times about the parish and had to reverse on more than one occasion for it. Bus drivers seem to think that they have a God given right to the road and that not reversing comes under that heading.

When I turned the corner to the bus park I was surprised to see it already in position for take-off but without driver. At least, I assumed that it was the dinky toy of a bus which wove its way from Bridport to Maiden Newton via Mangerton, West Milton, Powerstock, Toller and other points of convenience on the way. I was assured that this was so when I looked inside and saw Mrs, one of its regular passengers and, not having seen her since we had left the farm and not wishing to be rude I took the seat beside her, squashing up against an over full shopping basket. “That’s Mrs. B’s seat” she said and I agreed to leave it when Mrs. B. turned up.

I spent the next twenty minutes catching up on her family affairs and was sorry to learn that her youngest daughter, aged thirty-four and a mother of three, and who I had remembered only as a child many years ago, had recently been killed in a road accident. I offered my condolences and slowly, as the clock on the dashboard moved on the rest of the passengers came along. Mrs. A. struggled up the steps and dumped her heavy bags on the floor of the bus whilst she regained her breath. “They’re still queuing in Fine Fare” she said. “I know” said Mrs. T., “I put my things back on the shelf and walked out”. She moved to a seat and Mrs. B. came along with her daughter and grandchildren. I got up saying that I understood that I had her seat which she hotly denied. I moved to the back near an elderly couple who I didn’t know except by sight. Living in the country one feels that one should automatically know everybody one meets.

The Driver, full of tea from the nearby cafe came into the bus and started collecting fares. The regulars all knew how much and, knowing Mrs. L. I asked for a similar ticket as I would be getting off at the same place. We set off through the summertime traffic with ten of the fourteen seats occupied. The scent of freshly cut grass came through the windows at distant intervals as this was early June with much of the silage already gone and the hay hardly thought about.

Mrs. A. got off at the first stop where Reg was waiting to make his daily journey to Powerstock to study the horses in the comfort of the bar of the Horseshoes, something he’s done for some years and now he no longer rides his bike the bus is useful. I don’t know how he gets home but I bet he doesn’t walk! He sat opposite to my seat, looked quizzically at me and then spoke to the elderly couple at the back. We hadn’t seen each other for almost a year but he suddenly remembered who I was, he hadn’t expected to see me on his bus. I said I thought he would be haymaking in the good weather - he’s been retired some years - and he replied that he’d not done that for some years.

We then had a three way conversation, Reg, the elderly man and myself. We talked, of course, about hay. This inevitably led to horses, the useful kind I mean! Not the ones you ride about on. We eventually got around to the travelling harness maker. Reg quoted one who turned all his money into cider and was always drunk. The elderly man said “Do you remember so-and-so at Litton? He used to make boots too and very good they were. You could wear them on either feet.

“What? Either feet?”

“Yes, that’s right. Old Charlie . . . . always wore them a week on one way and then a week t’other.1'

The bus was pulling into the village and Reg and Mrs. L. and I got off and went our separate ways leaving the elderly man thinking about the boots which could be worn on either foot.