Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Brown Bus

I was raised in Windsor, England and during the fifties, children weren't coddled like today. The following story is a reminisence of one of the buses I took daily to and from school.
I have fond memories of the Brown Bus. From 1950 to 1955 I took the Brown Bus mornings and afternoons from Clewer to Thames Street on my way to and from the Grove School in Slough. The fare was a penny ha'peny each way. I was only five when I started and my Mum would put me in the care of the conductor every morning and he would make sure I got in the proper queue for the Slough bus at the station. By the time I was six I could even take buses and trains to my Grandmother's place in Brentford. I remember one afternoon when the bus was crowded and one of the standing passengers was drinking a half pint bottle of milk and he somehow managed to spill some of it into the brim of a lady's hat who was sitting down. Nobody, not even the milk drinker noticed it except me. I sat paralized with mirth watching the milk swish around the brim of this lady's hat. The milk drinker got off and still the milk was swishing around without dripping. This lasted until the lady went to get up from her seat and tilted her head forward and the milk poured over the head of the person in the seat ahead of her. The fracas that erupted when this occurred served to waken me from my paralysis and I started laughing quite loudly. To this day I think everyone on the bus thought it was me who had somehow pulled a prank.