Roy talks about his work as a bus driver
Resource Type: Audio | Posted on 19th July 2011 by Liam Physick
Roy talks in general terms about his job as a bus driver. He mentions the bus itself, the depot where he was based, the route he covered, his hours of work, how he started as a conductor, and how he acquired his PSV (public service vehicle, now passenger carrying vehicle or PCV) licence to become a driver
Interviewee: Roy
Interviewee Gender: Male
Interview Transcript
Roy: I was on the 86 really, round about . . .
Pat: Smithdown Road, wasn’t it, the 86, yeah?
Roy: The 86, and I done that for a few years, and that was quite good. I enjoyed that.
Paul: Is it all right to have other voices in it?
Jenny: Yeah.
Paul: Unknown man: OK, are you, are you recording this?
Jenny: Yeah, recording.
Paul: Roy, Roy, tell me, which depot then did you work at?
Roy: Garston.
Paul: Right, and, and you drove the four that, that went . . . What was the, the route of the four?
Roy: The route?
Paul: Yeah.
Roy: We done the 86, round Aigburth, down to Dingle down to . . . the Pier Head, like, down that way, you know, Princes Road, and then we came, the 86 from Mather Avenue . . .
Paul: Yeah.
Roy: And then it went down to Penny Lane, and from Penny Lane to Smithdown Road, and up that way, you know, down . . .
Paul: But you, you, you worked at the Penny Lane depot?
Roy: The Penny Lane, there was no Penny Lane depot, well there was a Penny Lane depot, but I was from Garston . . .
Paul: Right.
Roy: We didn’t, we use to cohabit with the Penny Lane depot from, on occasion when we were required as a, a stand-in if you like . . .
Paul: Yeah.
Roy: For, from Garston, we used to go to Penny Lane, and we’d work from there, but most of all, we were from Garston, to the Pier Head, and then back up the 86, up Aigburth Road and all that way, down to the 86 back again, and it was a circular that we done, and that was, that was my, I spent five years on that, on the 86.
Paul : What were your shifts generally?
Roy: The shifts were, we were on early morning, six til two, and we were on two til 10, and we were on split shifts . . .
Paul: Yeah.
Roy: . . . which were, used to do from seven or eight til . . . 12 and then we went back on in it the afternoon and we done four o’clock til six o’clock.
Paul: The peak hours?
Roy: Peak hour, yeah.
Paul:Yeah. And so, did you, did you start off as a conductor?
Roy: Started off as a conductor, yeah.
Paul: And then, then you, you, you became a driver?
Roy: And then I became a driver.
Paul: So how did you get your PSV licence?
Roy: I got me PSV licence cos we went to we went to Edge Lane . . .
Paul: Yeah.
Roy: . . . and we had a, a very good . . . familiar man, I forget his name now, but he was a good instructor on driving and he was one of the best at that time which was about nineteen . . . fifty, whatever, in the 50s, and he was a very good instructor, drove us to, learnt us to drive, and everything else, and we went on different things like the skid pan and . . .
Paul: You did, you did the skid pan, did you?
Roy: We done the skid pan, and everything else.
Categorised under: Work & Industry
Comments