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Midland Red or Mackie and Gladstones

  • Thread starter Thread starter teh
  • Start date Start date
John 70, nice one. I will show him pic. I dont know how true it is but he told me a long time ago that when we had a peas souper, a line of cars would follow a bus into Acocks green garage.
 
a line of cars would follow a bus into Acocks green garage
Click to expand...

I can remember in the thick fogs, the conductor would walk in front of the bus and a car or two would follow it!
One morning after a very foggy evening and night, there was an Inner Circle 8 parked outside our house on Hagley Road, abandoned on the wrong side of the road. The driver had missed a turning (the Ivy Bush?) and carried on till he could see no further, about a mile and a half, then presumably with his conductor walked off. An Inspector came for it mid-morning!
 
Motorman Mike, I have to tell you, it was me. I pushed a car along Station St. and into the Bull Ring Bus Station. I had just done the worst split shift in the history of mankind. All I had to do was get into the bus station, set down and return to Digbeth. I must say that when the weather was hot I was extremely uncomfortable and not very tolerant. If I was hungry I was bad tempered. This was a hot day, I was hungry and I had a bus that had cut out at every stop. I phoned in but there was not a spare. Now imagine going down Station Street on the right hand side because as you know there used to be a row of W.M.P.T. stops along the the left hand side and I was pasing several of their buses. The car in front stopped and the driver got out. Through the window I asked how long he wouldbe. He replied "only five foot three". He came round to the front doors and turned the valve. The doors opened, he got on and said "you monkeys" it was then that I hit him. He went down in the middle of the road and I was out of the cab and towering over him. I said "get up and move it, or I will move it". He replied "you move it, I have the keys". I cant go into to much detail but it went from outside The Tatler, straight through the Bus Station doorway followed by me and my bus. The passengers got off and said "thank you." The car driver came into the bus station as Inspector Fido came onto the scene. He said to Fido "he has just hit me" Fido, helpful as ever replied "I am not surprised, he hit me a fortnight ago. A man was bought in from another garage for the disciplinary and I had to make a statement to the police. I was charged with dangerous driving and willful damage. After six weeks the Police said they would take no further action and the garage said I would hear no more about it. The day it happened I went to see my Doctor. He rolled around laughing and eventually said it was all down to stress and the incident had probably me good. I consider myself to have been very lucky. I was never asked for an accident report.
 
Fantastic story Stitcher and I now have an idea who you might just be. Would you be the same bloke who was supposed to be on a diet and on late nights used to go in the Dolphin chip shop at the Green to scoff steak and kidney pies in the shop but when copped cracked on you was only eating the filling and not the pastry... and was you the bloke who regularly tried to get a free tea and sandwich out of Fred at Freds Cafe on the Green ( Oi vay I can't afford to keep you my boy, Fred would always say). This bloke I'm thinking of left the Red to drive black cabs and had the initials T.G.
Mike (known then as Maverick).
 
10 out of 10 Mike. I did say I was not a bus man. When I finished work at digbeth I would break the speed limit on the way home and I was not in a hurry. I would get my pocket watch out and check the time whilst sitting at the dining table on my day off. I did not suffer the same thing on transport. I could leave Brum with twenty drops on the south coast and just do it happy as a lark. I think my problem with the buses was the passengers. I could drive around all day but people annoy me.
 
Greetings Trev - it's a small world as they say. I got to dislike passengers by the time I retired but if they got on your nerves in your Red days I reckon they would have definitely got you the sack the way they are these days. I did try a lorry job just before I got married to get some regular hour work. Tim Edwards was at Griffin Warm Air, a place in Marshall Lake Road where Comet is now. It was alright to start as they gave me a Morris LD van but then wanted more drops with bigger loads so then gave me a 7 ton Thames Trader open back lorry. Nobody there knew how to tie a sheet down so I had to get by the best I could. One day on the M5 going to Hereford I caught sight in the mirror of the sheet dragging on the ground. A quick glance over me shoulder through a back window showed there was no sheet over the load. I pulled on the hard shoulder and found the sheet hanging on by one rope cleat. I detached it, spread it out and folded it up and chucked it in the back. If it rained it rained. After that I thought blow this I'd rather drive something with a roof where the load gets on and off by itself!
Mike
 
Each to his own as they say Mike. I was taught by some hairy a***d scotsmen how to rope and sheet before I ever drove a real lorry. It was at Road Services Caledonian,Tysely Depot. These men did Bham-Dumfries trunking. There was about eight of them, they lived up there but 3-4 came down Sunday Night and went back Monday night as another group came down. They did this six nights a week. They were real tough lorry men. They ran in all weathers and if Shap was too bad, they used the A1 to or from Scotch Corner then over Brough. They taught me how to secure anything safely on an open truck and how to rope and sheet which is not as easy as it may seem. Alas, I am afraid everything has gone downhill now Mike. Buses look filthy and unsafe, the drivers are dressed any old how and are always on their mobile phone, and lorry drivers from E. Europe putting motorists lives at risk. On another thread I said the other day that I work my route out these days because I cant afford to get involved with silly people.
 
Great story Stitcher about pushing the car along Station St. what years were you working at Digbeth, I was wondering if I know you also as I was there for a short time, but I dont have Mikes fantastic memory, still remember Freds Cafe though, and the bowling alley on late nights when we were on the "Green". for a cuppa.
 
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