6

“What is this that roareth thus? 

Can it be a motor-bus?”

Alfred Denis Godler, 1856–1925 

One of the inescapable features of a police officer’s life is to be told incessantly about parking tickets. In company, the moment one’s true occupation is known, out come all the harrowing tales of parking problems; he is told how the speaker parked only for the briefest of moments while he changed his library book/bought himself underpants/waited for the wife/suffered from dampness on his coil or got involved in some other accident of history. Never is a motorist at fault in such circumstances; everyone else is, especially the police.

Police officers who suffer from such ear-bending sessions can sympathise with doctors who are bored about operations, solicitors who are cornered by convicted innocents and plumbers who can’t get away from rattling taps or overflowing cisterns. For this reason, policemen who go on holiday seldom admit their true occupation—only a masochist would do that. Holidaying constables announce to their audience that they are variously employed as clerks for the government, officers in local authority employment, out-of-work salesmen, bingo callers or members of other sundry occupations. I know one policeman who, when on holiday, always tells his new-found friends that he is a button salesman. He reckons that’s the best conversation-stopper there is—after all, what can anyone ask about that?

One of my constabulary pals was on holiday in Scotland when this problem arose. Paul was with his wife and they had booked into a beautiful bed-and-breakfast farmhouse in the Highlands intending to stay overnight. So nice was the place that they stayed the entire week, and found the only other residents were another gentleman and his wife. They became friendly, especially over the evening meal and at breakfast. As the week progressed, Paul realised that the other gentleman never once gave a clue to his own occupation. Moreover, he never asked Paul how he earned his living.

The state of unspoken bliss continued through the week and on the final breakfast morning, that Saturday, Paul decided to tackle the other about his job. All through the week, he had realised the other was being overcautious about his work and decided to put him to the test.

At breakfast, therefore, he said, “Look, Jonathan, let’s be honest, eh? You and I have been carefully avoiding any discussion about our jobs, haven’t we? All this week, you have carefully avoided talking about your work and so have I.”

The other smiled agreeably. “I don’t like to talk about my job when I’m on holiday.”

“Neither do I,” smiled Paul in return. “But this is our last morning together. By lunchtime, we’ll be on our way home. Let’s tell each other.”

The other smiled again. “All right,” he nodded. “Who’s first?”

“I raised the matter,” Paul admitted. “So I’ll start. I’m a policeman.”

“And I’m a bishop,” said his friend.

For the country constable, however, such anonymity cannot be enjoyed. If he walks into the shop, pub, church or meeting of any kind, he is always “the policeman” and his wife is always “the policeman’s wife”. When visiting one’s local pub, therefore, it is impossible to be anything other than the local bobby, even when dressed in gardening clothes and covered in non-artificial farmyard waste products.

This being so, the talk often turns to motoring adventures in alien cities, of being stopped for speeding, booked for parking, checked for one’s driving licence and insurance or pulled up for faulty windscreen-wipers. But at least in Aidensfield, I had a variation of this eternal theme.

I had a man who talked about buses.

It was soon very clear that he could talk about nothing else. For that reason, it became something of a trial to enter the pub knowing he lurked in the shadows, waiting to pounce on someone with his latest piece of juicy information about a 52-seater with reclining seats. I did my best to avoid him, as did every other regular in the bar of the Brewers Arms. They had had their fill of Plaxton Shells, Wallace Arnold tours and United Express runs with rural bus-stops.

At first, the fellow was interesting. I listened enthralled as he discussed the merits of demisters on side-windows and emergency exits near the front, tool-boxes under the offside exterior and double-deckers on rural routes, but when one has this indigestible manna during every visit it does begin to pall. I didn’t know a great deal about buses anyway, but wondered how much this fellow really knew. Was it all conjecture and legend, or did he really know a lot about buses?

His name was Arnold Merryweather and he would be in his early fifties. He was a genial fellow, heavily built with a thick head of ginger hair and bushy side-whiskers, and he loved Irish jokes and Guinness. He was the life and soul of the pub, and his stories were funny, even if they were all about buses.

Arnold drove the bus which crept around our lanes day after day, week after week, to collect passengers at Ashfordly and transport them through the picturesque lanes and villages into York. His bus left Ashfordly at 7.30 a.m. and trundled through Briggsby, Aidensfield, Elsinby, and then beyond the boundaries of my beat and eventually into York. It did a return trip around lunchtime and turned about immediately for York. It arrived in time to turn round in the City at 5.15 p.m. to bring home the diminishing army of workers. Every day, week in week out, Arnold’s bus undertook those journeys.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, he left York immediately upon first arrival and did a special market-day run, collecting at Ashfordly at ten o’clock and getting into York around 11.30 a.m., having done a circuitous tour of Ryedale to get there. He was just able to fulfil his timetable with this extra trip and there’s little doubt he earned his money on those important three days. Those earnings probably lasted him all week.

I learned eventually that Arnold owned the bus. He did not operate for any company, but earned his living entirely by his bus. During the evenings, he would arrange tours to cinemas in York, or to the theatre, and he did runs to the seaside and works outings to breweries and other places of interest. He did a school run too, collecting a rowdy horde of children from isolated places and risking his bus and its passengers on gradients of 1-in-3 as he visited outlying farms and hamlets. But Arnold always got there and very rarely was he late. His purple and cream bus, with “Merryweather Coaches” emblazoned across the rear, was a familiar sight in the hills and valleys of Aidensfield and district.

To fulfil his many commitments, he had two coaches, and had a standby driver employed to assist when necessary. But if it was possible to use one bus and one driver for his complicated timetables then Arnold did so.

I made use of his bus once or twice. Sometimes, if the weather was atrocious and if Mary was using the car, I would catch Arnold’s bus at Aidensfield if I had business in Elsinby or Briggsby. I always paid, although he did offer me free transportation, for I reckoned he must be struggling to earn a living for himself and his colourless wife called Freda. He had to maintain his vehicles and premises too.

To partake of a trip on Merryweather Coaches was an experience which could be classed as unique. Each bus was identical and I think they were Albion 32-seaters. The seats were made of wooden laths set on iron frames and bolted to the floor. There were no cushions and other comforts, and the door was at the front. It was hinged in the middle and required a good kick from Arnold both to shut it and open it. Arnold acted as driver, conductor and guide as his precious heap of metal navigated the landscape.

My infrequent trips on his coaches proved to be an education. In the few flights I had, I saw him take on board one pig on a halter, three crates of chickens, a sheep and its lamb, a side of ham, several parcels and packages, a bicycle for repair, umpteen suits for cleaning or laundry for washing in York, and on one occasion he transported an unused coffin from Elsinby’s undertaker to a man at Ashfordly who wanted it for timber.

These assorted objects were loaded into the bus via the rear emergency door and I learned that Arnold was paid for these sociable services. In addition to being a carrier of people, he was a carrier of objects and this was accepted quite amicably by his human cargo. If Farmer Jones wished to send a pig to Farmer Brown twenty miles away, Arnold would deliver the said animal by bus for a small fee. It seemed a perfectly sound system, but its legality was in grave doubt.

I knew Arnold had been in buses since leaving school and I reckoned he’d put himself on the road long before officials like the Traffic Commissioners appeared with their P.S.V. licences, certifying officers, certificates of fitness and road service licences. Nonetheless, he displayed in his windscreen the various discs which proved someone knew he was operating a bus service. Even so, the other rules and regulations seemed to be superfluous so far as Merryweather’s Coaches were concerned.

His transportation of goods for hire or reward, for example, seemed to put him in the category of a goods vehicle rather than a bus, but it would be a stupid constable who attempted to stop that. After all, the fellow had to earn a living and he was doing a service to the community. I knew lots of house-bound folks depended upon Arnold for their weekly shopping, for he also spent his non-driving hours in York carrying out shopping requests for pensioners, invalids and others. He dealt with the parcels and packages on his bus, suits for the tailor to repair, carpets for the cleaners to clean, sewing-machines to mend, bikes to sell—the whole of society and its well-being made use of Arnold’s bus.

Late one winter evening, I was pleased I tolerated his unofficial enterprises. My little Francis Barnet motor-cycle broke down due to the driving rain which had penetrated the electrical circuits, and the faithful machine completely refused to go. The savagery of the storm meant I could find no place to dry the connections, then salvation arrived in the shape of Arnold’s bus. He had taken a trip to the Theatre Royal in York to see a pantomime and his returning headlights picked me out in the appalling weather. Realising my predicament, Arnold hauled his laden coach to a halt and shouted:

“Stick it in t’ back, Mr Rhea.”

The rear door was flung open and several willing villagers leapt out. In a matter of seconds, they had manhandled my dripping motor-cycle into the back and we rode home in triumph with the inactive bike held upright by pantomime visitors in their best clothes. Arnold refused to accept payment for this assistance, so I promised to buy him a pint in the pub. For me that would be a real penance because he’d bend my ear for an hour or two on the merits of diesel oil for buses or left-hand-drive models for continental tours.

Even I failed fully to appreciate Arnold’s complete service to the public until I took his bus into York one market-day when I was off duty. Mary had a lot of shopping to do and Mrs Quarry took the children; the car was due for a service and it seemed a great idea to make use of Arnold’s comprehensive bus service. Armed with baskets and money, therefore, we waited at Aidensfield one Tuesday morning for Arnold’s market-day special. We were surrounded by little old ladies and retired gentlemen, all wondering why we had chosen this mode of transport, and we said it was because of Arnold’s world-wide reputation as a busman.

Halfway between Aidensfield and Elsinby, Arnold halted and switched off the engine. We were parked in the middle of nowhere—no houses, no village, no bus-stop. Nothing. No one spoke. They all sat there very quietly and I watched Arnold in his driving-seat. He was reading the Daily Mirror. I checked my watch. We were running according to schedule. The fuel was all right, as he’d switched off the engine.

“Why have we stopped?” Mary ventured to ask in a whispered voice.

“I don’t know,” I had to admit. I didn’t dare make a fool of myself by asking the others.

Nothing happened. We must have waited a good ten minutes and by this time we were running late.

Then, as one, the assortment of passengers sighed with relief. I looked out of the window to my nearside and noticed a distant figure hurrying along a winding farm track. It was a farmer’s wife, laden with baskets.

I recognised her as she approached.

“It’s Mrs Owens,” I said to Mary.

“She always goes to market on Tuesdays,” breathed Mary. “I’ve heard her talk about it in the shop. I didn’t realise she lived down that lane.”

I learned that Mrs Owens travelled on Arnold’s bus every Tuesday and he always waited for her. Today she was a little late, but then that could happen to anyone. And so the bus continued.

The next diversion was about a mile out of Elsinby. Suddenly, we swung off the road and along a narrow tarmac lane. We trundled along this winding track for nearly half a mile and then Arnold turned his bus through a farm gate. We were now on a muddy track full of potholes and thick with half-buried rocks. Grass grew down the centre but Arnold’s groaning, bouncing old bus negotiated this rough terrain and came to rest in a grubby farmyard.

At this point, he began to crash the gears, seeking reverse. Eventually, with a shudder, the gear slotted home and he began the difficult manoeuvre of turning the bus within the confines of the farmyard. Chickens and ducks scattered, dogs barked and a horse stared in amazement as the purple and cream vehicle moved slowly forwards and backwards, turning gradually until it was facing the way it had come.

“Now what?” Mary grinned.

“A load of manure?” I ventured.

The engine died and someone threw open the rear door. Out jumped about a dozen passengers, just as they had done for my motor-cycle, and I watched them march towards a small outbuilding. The door was opened and they collected trays of packed eggs. Dozens and dozens of eggs. They bore these to the rear of the bus and began to stack them carefully, each tray bearing a dozen fresh farmyard eggs. Gradually the pile grew until it was as high as the shoulders of the seated people, and a second pile began. I lost count but I knew there was an awful lot of eggs. Without a word, all the volunteer loaders climbed aboard and closed the door.

But Arnold did not move yet. He waited until a tiny farm lady appeared. She wore a dull green mackintosh, black wooden clogs and a headscarf about her head. She carried a butter-basket in one hand and a hessian bag in the other, climbed aboard, asked for a “York return” and settled in a front seat.

And so it continued. We took children to catch trains, old folks to visit relatives in hospital, but the most amazing was Arnold’s action in York City. The eggs were bound for York market which is tucked behind the city in a narrow marketplace. Because of sheer numbers, it was impossible to carry them from Arnold’s terminus, so he took his bus and its load right into the market-place and halted near a stall.

There, the reverse procedure was adopted; the rearmost passengers flung open the door and the clog-shod little woman masterminded the operation from outside. Every tray of eggs was delivered to the market trader who counted them and paid in cash, as Arnold sat in his seat, ignoring the hoots of protest from cars and vans around him. As the job was under way, he disgorged his other passengers and retreated to his official bus-stop, there to offload his grocery orders, parcels and messages.

After that first trip, it was a regular sight to see the familiar shape of Arnold’s bus jolting along farm tracks, or turning around in stackyards, as it took aboard the produce of the district. Arnold’s contribution to the economy of Ryedale was immense. Although he was supposed to follow a prescribed route, he totally ignored it and went wherever he was needed. Somehow he knew who was waiting on any particular day and he provided what amounted to a house-to-house bus service. Furthermore, it was expected of him.

With a service of this nature, coupled with his unauthorised diversion into the city centre, it was inevitable that the Traffic Commissioners would learn of his methods. I waited for that day with some trepidation. But it wasn’t the Traffic Commissioners who caused my first legal brush with Arnold—it was Claude Jeremiah Greengrass.

 

Arnold halted his creaking bus at my shoulder one morning as I walked through Aidensfield en route to the post-office. His face was like thunder and he was in a highly agitated state. This was most unlike him—Arnold was usually the epitome of pleasantry and bonhomie, but it was clear that trouble was afoot.

“Mr Rhea,” he hailed me by leaning out of his window.

“Morning, Arnold. Something wrong?”

“I’ll say there is.” He left his seat and emerged from the bus. On the street, he took my arm and steered me from the flapping ears of his passengers. “It’s that bloody man Greengrass.”

“Claude Jeremiah? What’s he done to you?”

“He’s pinching my customers, that’s what.”

“You don’t mean to say he’s bought a bus!” I cried, horrified at the ramifications of this and remembering the problems of the pigs and donkey.

“No, he’s got an old car, a right old heap it is, Mr Rhea. He’s running it ahead of me on my market-day runs, picking folks up and charging them less than me. He’s ruining me.”

“He can’t get many in his car, surely?” I said, wondering what sort of enterprise Claude Jeremiah had evolved.

“I’ve seen him with seven packed into that old Austin,” Arnold growled. “And he comes back before me, charging each customer sixpence less than me. He’s taking trade off me, Mr Rhea. He’ll have to be stopped.”

“I’ll have a word with him.”

“He needs stopping, Mr Rhea, words are no good. He’s behaving illegally, so he is.”

“What law is he breaking?” I had been taught a good deal about public service vehicles at Training School and knew sufficient to appreciate that Claude Jeremiah could be running an unlawful public service vehicle. In those days, it was illegal to charge passengers separate fares in private cars, because this brought the car within the realm of a public service vehicle. Besides, ordinary motor-car insurance didn’t cover such use so it seemed there’d be an insurance offence too.

I wanted to know if Arnold knew the rules. He did. He promptly reeled off a list of rules and regulations likely to be broken by the enterprising Claude Jeremiah.

“You won’t have mentioned this to anyone else, have you?” I put to Arnold.

“No, but I’ve grumbled a lot, to my passengers, my regulars.”

“I was thinking of the Traffic Commissioners,” I told him.

“No, should I tell them?” he asked in all innocence.

“They might investigate your affairs too, Arnold—like your carriage of goods for reward….”

“Oh.” He saw what I was driving at. “Oh, aye, well. I see. Can this be dealt with quietly, Mr Rhea?”

“If I take Claude Jeremiah to court, Arnold, he might hit back at you; he might complain officially to me about your activities, or he might drop an anonymous line to the Traffic Commissioners about the goods-carrying affairs of Merryweather Coaches.”

“I am allowed to carry parcels, Mr Rhea, and passengers are allowed to fetch parcels on board, you know.”

“I wouldn’t classify a hundred dozen eggs as a parcel, Arnold.”

“It’s serious, Mr Rhea, I am insured, he’s not. You’ll have a word with him?”

“I will,” I promised. “But you should be more careful about carrying parcels, eh?”

In the seclusion of my office, I settled down with my books to refresh my memory on the laws about public service vehicles, or PSVs as we knew them. I knew they fell into three groups—a stage carriage was one which carried passengers at separate fares while not fulfilling the definition of an express carriage. The ordinary town service bus or a rural bus were typical examples. An express carriage was a PSV carrying passengers at separate fares none of which was less than one shilling or some other prescribed greater sum. Long-distance express coaches fitted this definition, like the overnight runs to London or Liverpool. The third was a contract carriage which did not carry passengers at separate fares—like a bus hired to take a party to the theatre or a football match.

The other rules and case law on buses were highly complicated with many exceptions and provisos. I concluded that if Claude Jeremiah was charging his passengers separate fares for their trips he was operating a public service vehicle. The appearance of his vehicle was immaterial. This meant he was breaking umpteen rules of the road, including motor insurance offences, public service vehicle licence offences and a host of others.

The first job was to prove that Claude Jeremiah’s old banger was a bus, and that meant catching him with a full load of paying passengers. After having words with Arnold about the most beneficial time to halt Claude’s motor, I arranged to position myself one morning on a wide stretch of road at the far boundary of my beat. This was the route taken by Claude Jeremiah, and it was an ideal place to halt a moving vehicle. Furthermore, he would have a full load by the time he reached this place.

Sure enough, soon after quarter past nine, the distant rumble of the ancient car reached my ears as it laboured towards the lofty boundary of Aidensfield beat. I was in full uniform and stepped impressively into the centre of the road as the rattling machinery approached. With a screech of brakes and a multitudinous banging and clattering, the old car groaned to a halt and Claude Jeremiah wound down his window.

“Morning, Mr Rhea.” His tiny brown face creased into an uneasy grin as he regarded me from his driving-seat. “Want a lift?”

“Morning, Claude Jeremiah. Full load, eh?” I stooped to peer inside. The car was packed with people and I counted nine heads including the driver. They were chiefly grey-haired ladies, as tight as baby wrens in their nest.

“Aye, just giving some friends a lift into York,” he said.

“Do you mind if I have a word with them?” I asked.

“Summat important, is it?” shrilled a woman’s voice from inside. “We’ve a busy day, Mr Policeman. We go like this because it’s quicker than yon bus, trundling down farm tracks and the like, delivering eggs and pigs. Mr Greengrass gets us there on time….”

“Are you a taxi then?” I asked him.

“No, just a friendly cove giving pals a lift—being community-spirited, in a manner of speaking, Mr Rhea.”

“What is the cost of your trip?” I asked the passengers.

“Half a crown apiece,” said a woman. “Two bob if you get on at Elsinby.”

“Look, Mr Rhea.” Claude climbed from his car and stood on the road, facing me. “I’m doing a public service. I can do a return trip cheaper than Merryweather and I get them there quicker. Tell me what’s wrong with that.”

“By doing what you are doing—” I tried to sound professionally knowledgeable and adopted an official tone—“you are fulfilling the role of a bus. That means you need licensing as a bus. You are therefore operating without the necessary licences. And you are not insured.”

“He’s doing us a favour, Mr Rhea, giving us a lift. If we decide to tip him a half dollar or pay for the petrol, that’s up to us….”

“It’s not as easy as that, Mrs Prescott,” I said. “There are rules to obey and careful safety regulations to follow….”

“If an accident happened to any of you in this car,” I said, “your families would not get compensation. Claude is not insured for paying passengers—he’s running a hell of a risk because he can’t afford to pay for your injuries or loss.”

“He’s a taxi…,” bellowed a deep-voiced woman from within.

“He’s not a taxi, not when he charges separate fares and picks you up at stages, and he’s not licensed as a hackney-carriage either. If he wants to do this sort of thing, he could get licensed as a hackney-carriage….”

“Look Mr Rhea….”

The situation was getting out of hand. By now, all the irate ladies had disembarked and were standing around glaring at me and their voices began to rise with irritation and anger as I pathetically tried to explain the rules and to point out the risks to themselves. But it was futile. No one wanted to know the intricacies of public service vehicle licensing laws—all they wanted was to get into the shops as quickly as possible.

“Right!” I shouted. “Listen to me,” and I banged on the roof of the car to emphasise my words.

Silence fell.

“Claude Jeremiah is breaking the law in several ways, and I intend to take action against him,” I said sternly. “And if you agree to go along with him in this you are also aiding and abetting him. That means you could all go to court, everyone of you.”

Their gabbling stopped and now they listened carefully as I explained their liability, but as I talked I heard the approaching music of Arnold’s bus. It was heading this way, as I knew it would, and it was making hard work of climbing the hill towards our present position. I kept the women there, talking in graphic detail about the fearsome penalties that could be inflicted upon those who aided and abetted the functioning of illegal buses.

As the bus appeared in view, I told them it would take me an hour to interview Claude Jeremiah about the miscellaneous offences that had been disclosed, and at this juncture the strident voice of Mrs Prescott shouted:

“Claude Jeremiah—give us our money back. We’re catching that bus….”

“But….” He stared at me and then at them.

“It could prevent you going to court,” I added slyly.

He began to fumble in his pockets and by this time the bus was upon us. I raised my hand and halted Arnold’s onward progress.

“Morning, Arnold. Going to York?”

“Aye, Mr Rhea. Got some passengers for me, have you?”

“There’s a few ladies in need of urgent transport to York,” I said.

“There’s room enough in here,” he told me and I climbed in for a look.

“Your aisles are not blocked, I see,” I smiled. “No crates of eggs or manacled pigs blocking the exits?”

“No, Mr Rhea, I run a properly conducted public service vehicle.”

And I happened to see that all 22 passengers had on their knees four or five egg-boxes, all full. A hundred dozen eggs….

“All these ladies and gentlemen are taking eggs into York market,” he said, smiling at me.

“I don’t want to know about their private arrangements.” I left the bus and watched Claude’s passengers clamber aboard. They paid their fares and with a double hoot of the horn the old bus rumbled on its way.

“That was nasty of you, Mr Rhea,” Claude grumbled.

“I’ve saved you from a fate worse than death!” I countered. “If the Traffic Commissioners had got hold of you, my lad, your feet would never touch the ground. I’m not taking you to court on this occasion, Claude Jeremiah, although I should do so. Regard this as a warning—no more pinching bus passengers. If you want to make money with your car, get yourself licensed as a taxi.”

“Yes, Mr Rhea.”

He looked dejected, but I think it was for the best. If I’d taken him to court, there would have been a long, involved and highly controversial case about what constitutes a bus, and I was happy to let him go with an unofficial warning.

“Do I need a licence to carry other things then?” he asked me with a crafty gleam in his eyes.

“Other things?” I asked.

“Well, folks keep asking me to deliver things in York, you see…. carry stuff for them….”

I stared at him and said, “Open your boot, Claude Jeremiah.”

He gingerly opened it and it was full of cartons of fresh eggs.

“If you convey goods for hire or reward, you need a goods vehicle licence,” I informed him. “And you need a special excise licence….”

“I’ll have to take those back then,” he said.

“I haven’t seen those, Claude, not today. I might stop and inspect your boot another day….”

“Thank you, Mr Rhea, thank you.”

He locked the boot, jumped inside his old car and roared away in a cloud of oily fumes.

Perhaps it seemed a little unfair to let Arnold’s bus continue to carry eggs, pigs and the like, but Claude was too much of a risk to allow loose upon the public with his car. In his case, people could suffer awful consequences—in Arnold’s case, only Arnold could suffer.

If the soft-glove treatment worked on this occasion, I would be pleased, but I wondered how long it would be before we had the Greengrass Taxi Line. A shudder ran down my spine.

 

For the next few months I had little contact with Merryweather Coaches and, so far as I know, Arnold never experienced a visitation by the Traffic Commissioners. I felt it unwise to check too closely upon his goods-carrying activities because he did provide a service to isolated rural communities. For Arnold, therefore, business began to boom. Contrary to the national trend, his bus service gathered more and more passengers and he felt obliged to employ a conductress to ease his burden.

He had found that his precious time was being consumed at every stop; he spent many useful minutes issuing tickets or delivering change and reckoned that if he paid for the services of a conductress much time and effort would be saved. Furthermore, his passengers would receive a swifter service. He placed an advert in every post-office window of the district and some eight or nine ladies made rapid application for the post. This was long before the days of the Sex Discrimination Act and it is possible that Arnold envisaged a delightful creature of exceptional beauty parading the length of his coach, but in this sense the sun did not shine on Arnold.

None of the seven hopefuls could even be described as remotely attractive, although five could count money and one knew how to change a wheel. After interviewing each woman, Arnold settled for Miss Hannah Pybus, whose name led to many nicknames aboard the coach. Some of the children called her Fly-Bus or Hannah Wide-Bus, the latter being due to the somewhat extensive measurement of her hips.

Hannah was a spinster of the parish of Thackerston and was in her fifties. She had lived with her retired father for years, never working at a normal job but spending her time looking after the old man. He had died several months ago and she now needed an outlet. The opportunity of a job which took her free of charge into conurbations like Ashfordly and Elsinby, and into that far-off place of York, was a godsend. A whole new world opened for Hannah Pybus.

It was sad that Hannah was not in the least attractive in her appearance. From a distance, there could be considerable doubt as to whether she was male or female, for she was almost six feet tall, with a frame like a battleship and hips like the proverbial rear-end of an African bull elephant. Stout, trunk-like legs supported her massive frame and she walked with a strange, sailor-like motion, as if throwing her body forward in an attempt to keep it mobile. Her shapeless, outdated clothes concealed any semblance of breasts or waistline while her face was heavy about the jowls with sandy-coloured tufts of hair sprouting from all manner of odd places. She had a freckled face with pale brown eyes and a mop of sandy-coloured hair on top, the strands held in place with tortoiseshell slides with a thick red ribbon at the back.

Being a lady of leisure, therefore, she embarked on her new job with characteristic gusto, cycling daily from her cottage at Thackerston to Arnold’s depot at Ashfordly, some six or seven miles. Her cycle had a basket on the front and a wire skirt-guard at each side of the rear wheel. Somehow she forced the pedals of her gallant machine to carry her up the long incline to Aidensfield Bank Top before gathering speed for the remaining four-mile run into Ashfordly.

After Arnold had explained the intricacies of his ticket machine and accounting system, he took off for York with Hannah aboard. She was clad in a shapeless gown coloured purple and cream to match his coaching colours and looked like a statue awaiting its unveiling ceremony. In her enthusiasm as the first passenger entered, she pounced on him and demanded his destination. He paid all the way to York, even though he only wanted to go to Elsinby.

Within a week, she was totally in charge. Arnold told me he’d never seen anything like it. Hardly had the last passenger boarded at any given stop, than Hannah rang the bell to send him along his route. There were no delays now. She proceeded to allocate seats to the passengers, leaving them no choice in the matter, and demanded their fares while making sure they behaved. Children quaked when she appeared, old men didn’t dare smoke their foul pipes and the village gossips watched their language as Hannah hovered around, eagle-eyed and always anxious to please her boss.

There is little doubt that Arnold and his finances benefited from her presence. He was able to concentrate upon his driving and maintenance, while Hannah cared for the interiors of the two buses. She polished and washed, swept and tidied, and she seldom made an error with the cash. The general behaviour of passengers, especially children and drunks, improved tremendously and the net result was that more people used Merryweather Coaches. They seemed happy to obey Hannah when on board. Arnold was in his sixth heaven and, whenever I saw him in the Brewers Arms, he talked incessantly of bus-conductresses, buses and bus routes. For him, Hannah provided a new dimension in his life, but for the regulars in the pub they grew just as sick of Hannah as they did with every other facet of bus-lore. Even so, they all agreed that it was nice to see Arnold so happy.

There was even talk of a romance between the unlikely pair, although it was universally agreed that the man who took Hannah in all her prime showed gallantry of the highest order or foolishness of the most awful kind. Nothing developed along those lines while I was at Aidensfield, although I did note Arnold’s starry eyes as he talked about Hannah’s role in his coaching enterprise. Maybe there was something there? Maybe he did drive her home after the last trip, with her cycle in the rear and his hands on the wheel?

It is quite true to say that the entire community was delighted at the success of Arnold’s venture. The little bus company with its huge conductress did a roaring trade and Hannah did allow some parcels to be carried. She had studied the Conduct of Drivers, Conductors and Passengers Regulations 1936 and 1946, consequently she knew which goods were permitted and which had never to be brought aboard. She knew that she must never talk to the driver when driving, unless for safety reasons, and she appreciated that it was her duty to enforce the regulations relating to the conduct of passengers, and to see that the route, fare and destination notices were properly displayed.

Hannah enforced the rules most carefully. She enforced those which said passengers had not to be disorderly, that they had to enter and alight in the correct manner and not through skylights or windows, that they had not to distract the driver’s attention, nor distribute notices or advertising matter aboard the bus. She had learned that they must not play noisy instruments or throw bottles, coins and litter about the place, nor allow any banners, flags or streamers to overhang the road outside. She made sure they did not soil the vehicle or be offensive, either in behaviour or clothing. Loaded firearms had not to be taken on board, nor had any other offensive article and no one could bring an animal aboard without the consent of an authorised person. Hannah reckoned she was authorised to refuse the pigs, lambs, hens and goats although she did tolerate such creatures if the accompanying adult would clean up the mess and keep the creature under control.

Hannah knew that she had wide powers to enforce the observance of these rules, and that a constable was also given like powers. If any passenger contravened the regulations, he had to give his name and address on demand to the driver or conductor, or to a constable, and such a person could be removed from the bus by either the driver or the conductor, or by a constable if requested by those officials.

It was difficult to envisage an occasion when I would be called to act officially, for I knew Hannah would quell any riot by the merest glance of those pale eyes, but one Wednesday afternoon I found myself involved in what appeared to be an infringement of the Conduct of Drivers, Conductors and Passengers Regulations.

I was in my office at home, writing reports, when Arnold’s bus halted outside and a very distraught Hannah hurried down the path. I opened the door to admit her, for she was clearly distressed. I gathered from her first words that a passenger had infringed the rules in a rather peculiar way.

“Calm down, Hannah!” I said. “Take a deep breath and then tell me about it.”

She took a huge breath, enough to drain a hot-air balloon, and her colossal bosom swelled behind my counter and threatened to dislodge the typewriter. But the trick worked, for her face lost its initial look of horror and disgust, and she sighed.

“By jove, Mr Rhea, it was a nasty shock, I can tell you.”

“Come in and sit down.” I lifted the flap on the office counter and invited her in for a seat. She settled down and refused a cup of tea; Arnold was waiting outside in the bus and would take her home. She’d give him a cup in her house and would have hers then. He wouldn’t come in, she said, as he found it all too embarrassing.

“So what happened on that bus?” I asked.

She swallowed hard and I could see she was acutely embarrassed.

“It was a man,” she said. “He… er…. well, he broke the rules about the conduct of passengers…. he was offensive,” she added quickly.

“Dirty clothing? Been cleaning out his pigs, had he?”

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth. “It was worse than that, Mr Rhea, much, much worse.”

“Go on, I must know what he did if I am to take action.”

She swallowed again.

I waited.

“He…. look, Mr Rhea, I’m not very good at explaining things….”

“I’m good at listening,” I assured her. “Take your time.”

She paused, clearly trying to select the right words to describe her ordeal, and all the time my curiosity was increasing. What on earth had happened aboard Merryweather Coaches to create such an effect upon the redoubtable Hannah Pybus?

“He was indecent.” She managed to spit out the word.

“Indecent?” I asked. “How? Did he swear at you?”

She shook that pale gingery head.

“No, it was worse than that. I’m not fussy about a swear-word or two, Mr Rhea. This was worse than any swear-word.”

“Go on.” I was getting interested now. Had he taken a grab at her? Some passengers weren’t slow in smacking the shapely bottoms of conductresses, but I couldn’t imagine anyone being so fuddled as to smack Hannah’s spacious rump regions. Maybe a drunken passenger had done that, or seized her by some other part of her towering frame? The thought was astonishing.

“He exposed himself at me.” She lowered her head and blushed furiously as the words emerged.

“Indecent exposure?” I asked. “On a bus?”

“Yes,” she said, relaxing now she had clarified the situation.

Immediately, my Training School knowledge began to click within the farmost regions of my mind. Indecent exposure was a public nuisance if it was done publicly. If Hannah alone had seen the object in question, it might not be an indictable common law offence. There being no public viewing. The Vagrancy Act, 1824, section 4, offered a possible solution because it created a summary offence for a man to wilfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely expose the person with intent to insult a female. Nothing said what “the person” meant here, but most of us had a good idea. If the fellow intended to insult Hannah, that provision might fit the circumstances. The Town Police Clauses Act 1847 also created an offence of indecent exposure if it occurred in any street to the annoyance of residents or passengers. Arnold’s bus wasn’t a street, so I had to rule out the latter offence. Because the Common Law offence must be proved to be a public display I was left with the Vagrancy Act and its quaint Victorian phraseology.

On a bus? I knew there were no buses when the Vagrancy Act came into force, but happily that old law, still in force, left the situation sufficiently open to cater for such crimes. Besides, the Conduct of Drivers, Conductors and Passengers Regulations of 1936 and 1946 would cope with the fellow, if all else failed. I felt I could proceed with the matter.

“An indecent exposure on a bus, Hannah. Would you say you were insulted?” I had to ask this in order to prove the case, should it ever reach court. It was part of the Victorian wording of the statute.

“Insulted! I was mortified!” she said, hurt at my question.

“I have to ask, as it’s an essential ingredient of the offence. The lady must be insulted if I am to take action.”

“I was grossly insulted!” she stressed.

With her use of words like this, I was reminded of the police recruit who defined Gross Indecency as “Indecency between a large number of persons, 144, I think”.

“Who was the man?” I asked next.

“I don’t know his name, but he got on at York. He was all right until I went for his fare. He got off at that lane end, just before you get into Elsinby from York.”

“You’d know him again?”

She nodded. “Oh yes, I’d know him again!”

“Did you tell anyone at the time?”

“No, I didn’t want to upset the passengers. I told Arnold when we got to the terminus and he said I’d better mention it to you.”

“Certainly. Well, it looks as if he lives on my beat. What’s he like?”

She described a man about fifty years old, with grey hair and an unshaven appearance. He was a small man, she said, wearing a dirty raincoat and heavy black boots. All flashers wore dirty raincoats, I thought. This one fitted the traditional pattern.

Having described him quite well, I had to ask her precisely what he had done. It was important from the prosecution point of view.

She blushed furiously once again and asked, “Do I really have to tell you?”

“I’m afraid so. I must know precisely what he did, Hannah, if I’m to take any action.”

“Well,” she said. “Er…. his trousers front was open and … it … his thing … it was sticking right out.”

“Did he draw your attention to it?”

“Yes, he did!” she snapped.

“How?” I asked.

“He placed his fare on it, for me to take.”

“His fare?” I almost doubled up with laughter at this latest technique, but managed to keep a straight face.

“Yes, he spread the money out, right along it.”

“And how much was his fare?”

“A shilling,” she said. “He laid it out, right along his thing.”

“What sort of coins were they?” I was fascinated now.

“Pennies,” she said calmly. “Twelve pennies.”

My mind boggled. Side by side, they’d cover a large area, but twelve £.s.d. pennies laid out in a line covered an enormous distance, nearly fifteen inches. I made her repeat this. I had to be sure I got it right. Who was this man, I wondered? It looked as if we had a world record-breaker in the locality.

“And?” I asked.

“Well, I refused to accept them….” she said pertly. “I made him collect them himself and pay his fare.”

“And did he?”

“Yes, he did!”

“And then he put it away?”

“I don’t know. He was all alone on the back seat and I didn’t stay a minute longer.”

If my report of this event reached Force Headquarters, the place would be in uproar and every member of the police service would be jealous. I could imagine a stampede to check the veracity of this claim, but one’s constabulary duty must be done.

“Thanks, Hannah. I’ll make enquiries and I’ll let you know how I get on. You go home now and have that cup of tea with Arnold.”

She left the office and, as the bus rumbled out of sight I collapsed in a fit of laughter. I’d never heard anything like this before and felt sure Hannah had made a mistake. What had she seen? I racked my brains to identify the fellow and then I realised who it was.

Poor Hannah!

But, first, I had to check my theory. I jumped aboard the little Francis Barnett and chugged over the valley to Elsinby. Through the village, I turned left along a rough lane until I arrived at Bankside Cottage. I knocked, for I knew old Bill Firby was at home. Smoke was rising from his chimney. Soon the green door was opened and Bill stood there, his jacket open and his face registering surprise when he saw me.

“Hello, Mr Rhea.” He stood back to invite me in. “You’re a stranger at my door.”

“Aye,” I agreed, entering his cosy home. “It’s not often I have cause to call on you.”

“Summat up, is it?” He led me into his sitting-room where a cosy fire burned, and pointed to an armchair. I settled with my crash-helmet on my lap.

“Bill, you’re going to laugh when I’ve finished this tale, but I need your answers first. Were you on the bus out of York today?”

“Aye,” he said. “Yes, I was.”

“And Hannah was conductress?”

“She was.”

“And did you pay your fare all in pennies?”

“Aye, I hadn’t a shilling piece, so I used pennies. Nowt wrong with that, is there?”

“No, there isn’t.” I laughed now. “You’ve cleared up a massive problem for me.”

“I have?”

The truth was that Bill had only one hand. His left hand was missing at the wrist, and that arm terminated in an irregular fleshy stump. He wore no covering and no false hand. On the bus, his fare had been in his right-hand pocket and in order to count it he had pulled up his left sleeve to expose his arm from his elbow down to his wrist. To gain stability for his stump, he had placed his elbow on his lap, tucking it firmly into his groin, and he rested his wrist on his right leg. He had then laid out the coins for Hannah to count, placing them along his arm.

Hannah, poor unmarried woman, had totally misunderstood this innocent action.

When I told him the essence of her complaint, he laughed until tears rolled down his eyes and asked if I was going to tell her the truth.

“Yes, of course,” I assured him.

“Nay, lad, don’t do that. Think of my reputation if she spreads that tale around. I’ll be the envy of all the blokes for miles around!”

But I had to tell Hannah the truth. I did and she listened intently; happily, she laughed when I explained Bill’s fare-paying technique. Whenever he travelled by bus or paid in a shop, he always used that system, I explained.

“Oh,” she said. “Silly of me. I’m sorry to have troubled you Mr Rhea. I will apologise to Mr Firby when I see him.”

“He’s not worried,” I said. “There’s no need to bother yourself any more about it.”

“Thank you, Mr Rhea,” she beamed and I left her comfortable house.

On reflection, that little episode raised more questions about Hannah’s past than it solved. Until then, we had assumed she had never had a man friend, but perhaps she had.

We all wondered who it might have been.