Roger Atkinson - Blackout, Austerity and Pride

Reconstructing the story now
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for private motoring. Hence ‘everyone’ used the buses (or trams
or trolleybuses) and knew, with great facility, their local services
and times and their (usually good) reliability. Traffic congestion
was not a hazard, but the bus might come along already full.
Indeed, services were not always reduced, although the Regional
Transport Commissioners’ pressure for cuts grew stronger, as
the petrol and rubber shortages worsened. There was universally
a curfew on last journeys at night, exceptions being allowed
only for limited later buses back to military establishments or
night shift buses to factories on war work. Buses generally were
very heavily used, bringing the necessity for a legal requirement
for six or more persons waiting at a bus stop to form a queue.
The chain that the conductress hooked across the platform was
in regular use at peak hours or on 9 p.m. or last buses. She then
rang three bells to tell the driver that the bus was full and should
not stop again until he got a single bell, meaning that a passenger
wanted to get off.
A wartime notice that appeared on Coventry Corporation buses:
YOUNG SCHOOLBOYS AND SCHOOLGIRLS
The conductor is required to direct young
schoolboys and schoolgirls to the lower saloon
where she can better look after them
For information in town centres if there was not an enquiry office,
there would almost certainly be a stand inspector or regulator.
Some of these would only give information about their own
employer’s buses, but members of the public passing by could
be fruitful sources of (generally correct) details of where to wait
and what to catch – the public had a strong ethos of helpfulness.
In the 1940s, therefore, it was not unusual to develop a youthful
interest in buses. The difficulty lay in finding information about
bus services remote from one’s own local patch. The removal of
all road signs and milestones and the non-availability of maps
did not help. One or two youngsters persevered.