Passed my test on this.
Any employee of the Bristol Omnibus Co. was entitled to a try-out at the Company's driving school, irrespective of previous experience. My previous experience amounted to precisely none. I had last ventured onto the roads at the age of 12 in control of a bicycle. Even then, I'm not sure that the word "control" precisely describes my method. I just rode where I liked when I felt like it and expected everyone else to defer to me. The same method may still be seen in use today among cyclists who don't have the excuse of being children. But cycling wasn't really for me; it was far too energetic, and I disliked riding into a strong wind ...one so felt like turning around and going back the other way.
Actually the Company had approached me, not the other way around. I had been a conductor for six years, but now one-man operation was coming in and the Company was eager to train conductors as drivers. I thought it would be an amusing lark, an agreeable break from routine and a good skive. It was quite a shock to find myself, two weeks later, in the cab of a bus ...nothing like the ones I'd trained on... going out to pick up my first cargo of humanity. This was in the mid 1970s, when everything was inefficient and most people had to work their way up a six month waiting list to take their driving tests.
In after years I did sometimes wonder about the wisdom of giving people PSV licences after two weeks' experience of driving and roadcraft. After a couple of narrow squeaks, which still have the power to make me break out in a muck sweat when I think of them, I learned that cockiness was not an option. I'd say it took me a year to feel thoroughly confident.
This was the vehicle on which I passed my test. It was a Gardner-engined Bristol LD-type Lodekka new in 1959. It had originally belonged to the "country" fleet, which meant that it had Bristol's labyrinthine 5-speed "crash" gearbox with its three neutral positions and no way out of 5th except back through 4th ...a ticklish business for a novice driver. Some of the training buses then in use were painted in a livery of cream with orange lettering and "lining out", but a new General Manager had recently been appointed. He had come from the Eastern National company and introduced a number of Eastern National practices, including this colour-scheme for training vehicles. Friday 27th August 1976.
Passed my test on this.
Any employee of the Bristol Omnibus Co. was entitled to a try-out at the Company's driving school, irrespective of previous experience. My previous experience amounted to precisely none. I had last ventured onto the roads at the age of 12 in control of a bicycle. Even then, I'm not sure that the word "control" precisely describes my method. I just rode where I liked when I felt like it and expected everyone else to defer to me. The same method may still be seen in use today among cyclists who don't have the excuse of being children. But cycling wasn't really for me; it was far too energetic, and I disliked riding into a strong wind ...one so felt like turning around and going back the other way.
Actually the Company had approached me, not the other way around. I had been a conductor for six years, but now one-man operation was coming in and the Company was eager to train conductors as drivers. I thought it would be an amusing lark, an agreeable break from routine and a good skive. It was quite a shock to find myself, two weeks later, in the cab of a bus ...nothing like the ones I'd trained on... going out to pick up my first cargo of humanity. This was in the mid 1970s, when everything was inefficient and most people had to work their way up a six month waiting list to take their driving tests.
In after years I did sometimes wonder about the wisdom of giving people PSV licences after two weeks' experience of driving and roadcraft. After a couple of narrow squeaks, which still have the power to make me break out in a muck sweat when I think of them, I learned that cockiness was not an option. I'd say it took me a year to feel thoroughly confident.
This was the vehicle on which I passed my test. It was a Gardner-engined Bristol LD-type Lodekka new in 1959. It had originally belonged to the "country" fleet, which meant that it had Bristol's labyrinthine 5-speed "crash" gearbox with its three neutral positions and no way out of 5th except back through 4th ...a ticklish business for a novice driver. Some of the training buses then in use were painted in a livery of cream with orange lettering and "lining out", but a new General Manager had recently been appointed. He had come from the Eastern National company and introduced a number of Eastern National practices, including this colour-scheme for training vehicles. Friday 27th August 1976.