A quick look at a London Transport map had shown that I was in no obligation to go by car to start my forthcoming horticultural job. Crossing town all that way by 34 bus to that council HQ was in fact a propitious option and I saw that I could actually start my trip from a handy stop not fifty yards away from my front door.
I did not wait long for this bus to turn up. Jumping on board, I found that I was automatically stomping upstairs as I always did long, long ago during my infant school days, hoping that auspicious spot in its front row on top was vacant—and it was!—providing thus a broad panorama for watching all that was going on in and around our part of London, always so busy and fascinating. In fact, I had not brought a book or my daily Guardian to dip into on this occasion. I thought I would just wallow in a study of all that daily humdrum suburban activity. It’s not surprising that visitors from abroad always savour occupying this position high up in a bus for watching that constant flow of amusing, curious habits or surprising activity among our capital city’s inhabitants, and writing about it all on postcards to mail off back to family.
Traffic was habitually fairly solid in our particular district at this hour but this sluggish crawl along was providing a big opportunity to catch up on any particular innovations in its buildings, shops or parkland as I was passing by. I was soon looking out across a broad vista of lush grassy common ground with its tall oaks all around and this was slowly giving way to an untidy built up horizon. Soon I found I was in a shabby working class locality and our bus was hardly moving at all.
Our horizon was now an amalgam of grubby blocks of flats all of which could do with a thorough wash down. Also grim back-to-back rows of Victorian housing, windows and doors missing (possibly squats by now?), narrow untidy roads—half bricks, cast away cans and scraps of rubbish lying all around, rusty old cars with various bits missing, an odd stray cat or dog hobbling along or a young immigrant kid in a hood, kicking a tin can in front of him.
In contrast, two roads distant, I caught sight of a charming display to light up all that gloom: a big happy good-looking black family all smart in suits, colourful silk shirts and formal hats, including many old folks, twin baby boys in a pram and four young girls, big pink bows in all that mass of shiny curly hair, grinning and proudly walking in a column—off to church for nuptials, I was imagining. Following this joyous group, back all of forty yards or so, I also saw a colourful band of musicians playing joyously in unison on an unusual array of horns, tubas, piccolos, violins, violas, marimbas and cymbals. No angry Brixton riots to worry about on this patch.
Our bus was by now static with its motor shut off. I soon was conscious of many of us on board standing up, cursing and starting to alight. Information was soon broadcast to all still sitting down, that our road was now totally shut about sixty yards in front. British Gas, having found a substantial crack in a major mains running across this portion of tarmac, had built a cordon all around its location, and was busy drilling and digging down to put things right. It could, it was said, all last two hours.
What was to occur following this damning information was truly amazing. That man driving us, with our survival in his hands, (I’ll just call him “busman” from now on), was obviously having a gigantic tantrum. Unhappy to wait hours in his small cab for that gang to finish what could turn out a long and tricky job, busman quickly did a staccato four point turn (a bus is long!), and shot off down a gap on our right into a labyrinth of narrow suburban roads. And with no bus stops to worry about, his foot was flat on his floor. All of us had no option but to hang on and simply pray.
For comfort in facing up to all this hair-raising bravado, I took out my walkman and put in a compilation of sonatas by Igor Stravinsky and an array of Paraguayan folk songs on a CD which I always carry around as in such traumatic situations it calms my mind totally. As that magical music was blocking out any sound from without and I had shut my lids from that midday sun, I was not particularly conscious of what was about to hit us.
Busman was by now losing his cool totally, grinding to a halt again in front of an additional roadblock. His solution was to roar backwards—at thirty, forty, fifty mph—up this particularly narrow road, miraculously avoiding by a maximum of a foot, twin rows of cars and vans all along his way. I was now watching it all in horror.
Again an abrupt right turn and our bus was moving swiftly along a broad downhill run. Focussing in a panic on all that was in front of us, I saw a viaduct looming up about thirty yards distant with a low horizontal iron archway across our path. Unfamiliar with this particular suburb and imagining busman was au fait with its topology, to think that this archway might turn out so low as to actually stop a tall bus (such as ours) in its tracks was far from my mind. In fact that is just what was about to occur.
Without warning a mighty thud shook us all. But our bus was not about to stop or slow down for such a minor glitch. It was continuing on its way forward and that razor-sharp rim of that viaduct was actually slicing off our roof backwards, making a frightful din similar to a circular saw, lifting it all away, yard by yard, as if it was a lid from a tin of pilchards, and curling it back into a tight roll which finally hung downwards, bouncing around at our back. In contrast to all that warm stuffy air upstairs, a sharp full frontal gust of wind was now driving strongly through our hair and forcing us to duck down or put up our hands and hold tightly on to our hats—or locks.
I was put in mind of that traditional sort of Victorian omnibus (with no roof) in which hardy commuting folk would wittingly climb up on top for an invigorating windy trip and watch all that was going on around and I was just smiling at this farcical situation. But I found that I was in a distinct minority: although it was not total panic up on top, I could catch sounds of gasps, shouts, howls of anguish, crying, grumbling, praying, to say nothing of a bout of manic laughing from a poor soul not far away.
Busman finally did stop, as a squad car with flashing lights was approaching. To avoid any implication in what was now a highly tortuous situation, most of us on board got off swiftly. Taking stock of this location, only a half-hour walk now from my goal, my local council HQ, I thought I would just carry on by foot. But first I put in a quick call to warn my forthcoming boss about my holdup. In particular, I had to vanish swiftly and so avoid any onslaught by that usual appalling bunch of cynical crusading British journalists, bound to turn up soon, all subscribing to that cynical motto: “Don’t on any account allow truth to obstruct a good story”.