Welcome!

This blog is our second, or third attempt at opening a little window into what goes on in my 'model bus' fleet. I hope everyone reading finds it of interest.

As someone perennially hard up, the heady world of model railways isn't for me - purchase prices for trains run to three figures, and as I never appear to have funds such things aren't an option for me. 

I thought I'd open the blog with a post about me, what I've done in my career and my interests in model buses and in fleet operation given how specialist the field is. 

I come from Yeovil in Somerset, and was born with diesel in my veins as my late father was a taxi proprietor and mother was the controller. He had just the one vehicle and traded as Camelot Cabs until the bank refused a loan for further vehicles, so he was left with some lucrative Dorset school runs and no vehicles. Luck appears to have been in short supply for Dad, and depressingly my life seems similar as I head, or am dragged kicking and screaming towards middle age! 

Despite his intelligence, and going to a grammar school Dad had a number of jobs in his working life, though few of them seemed to be well paid, he ended up driving taxis in my home town in the early 1980s after his first marriage ended. Originally he came from Bromley in Kent and he was one of the last people to do National Service in the early 1960s, before marriage in the late 1960s and several homes in Kent. He realised early on the concept of the rat race, excessive commuting, for little in return besides, and so he moved to Somerset in the early 1970s where he expanded his family.  

Mum was a controller at the taxi firm he drove at, and their relationship was founded on the need for both to have somewhere to live, anything else was a bonus. He did wait till I was in my mid 20s to reveal that bombshell. 

Through an inheritance in the late 1980s he was able to purchase the council house in which we lived, and thanks to Mrs Thatcher, spiralling interest rates, Mum's illness and subsequent mortgage arrears got to see it repossessed early in 1994. In 1990 the taxi trade got so bad (80 hour weeks for little more than the minimum wage) he went on the buses, and did 5 years driving those before having a nervous breakdown at 57 and effectively he embraced early retirement there and then. 

In 2006 he moved to York with mother and enjoyed a life of doing very little, tending to his allotment and writing catty letters to the local paper before he passed away in January 2018 at the age of 79. Whilst the last couple of years had seen him decline, it was nonetheless a shock when it happened. Nothing really prepares you for what happens but, of course, we all have to go through losing relatives. 

So it was through that job, driving buses, that I developed an interest in them. I say interest, it was more of an obsession. Asperger Syndrome appears to run in our family and in my case I had the diagnosis at 15. Obsessions come with the territory when you have aspergers :D

Growing up my interest in buses was at the expense of all other things in life - football, loose cars, fast women. The money from my paper round would end up spent on a day explorer ticket and from the age of 13 onwards, I ventured on the yellow minibuses of Southern National to the exotic locations of Exeter (2 buses required, change in Taunton) and further east into rural Dorset. To this day I have a love of that county, and have spent 4 years of my career working at Yellow Buses in Bournemouth, which counts at the high point of my career. We should gloss over the 11 month second stint..... ;)

Being able to leave my home town was a pleasant escape for me, as I don't have fond memories of Yeovil. Having an interest which wasn't football, loose cars, or fast women wasn't very orthodox and so I had a difficult childhood. I learned a lot later, in the course of work what 'banter' is, and it's meaning. 

But my obsession meant I have an encyclopedic knowledge of Somerset and Dorset independents and an ongoing interest in what is termed the 'post deregulation' independent. The type that comes from nowhere, survives 3/5 years, and goes bang spectacularly leaving a trail of destruction in it's wake. 

I developed in life once I'd left school, went to college, enjoyed it (mostly because people doing it wanted to be there, rather than having to be there), went onto University after an abortive year doing an HND Business course. I graduated from Swansea Institute of Higher Education in 2006 with a 2:2 Transport Management degree, and until 2018 was the only one of my course who actually used their degree for work. 

In my 'industry' career I had a few summer jobs whilst at University, firstly working for Hookways in Devon which was incredibly fun (not that I thought so at the time!), then two summers with Western Greyhound in Cornwall. They, then were the model of how you should run a bus operation though they had a sad ending in 2015.  After University, I worked for two years with the TAS consultancy in Preston, moved to Kent to work for Stagecoach where we learned about what to do when too many customers want to travel on your services and how you play catch up increasing the service frequencies.

I met my long suffering partner, Emily in 2010 and in 2011 I set up home with her. We knew each other at school and reconnected on facebook in late 2009 and it snowballed from there. I've learned about holidays and other hobby interests and she's learned more than she wanted about buses and how to deal with someone who has aspergers and his multiple obsessions... 

In 2012, I moved to Bournemouth, joining Yellow Buses as a scheduler and had three happy years professionally working for one of the best bosses in my career. I then returned to Kent and spent 11 months with Arriva as I wanted to progress in management and relocate to the north of England where houses are much cheaper, and so is the quality of life. Sadly my aspirations weren't ever met- and my Dad became ill at the same time a lot of people within Arriva (who've moved on themselves) openly didn't want me around and made sure I failed in the job. I put up with 8 months of people wanting me to fail, resenting my presence in the building before I had had enough.

I then went back to Bournemouth for almost a year but that wasn't a happy time either - the business I'd left 13 months earlier was in freefall and heavily loss making thanks to some crazy business decisions. My skills in firefighting at Arriva came in useful. 

I then moved to South Wales, working in Cardiff for a municipal bus operation. My Father passed away just after starting the job, and I didn't start grieving for 6 months. That was interpreted by that employer as failing to perform in the job...

My reward for staying loyal was a P45 and another nervous breakdown. The boss' reward for helping create said breakdown by failing to follow a stress management plan (designed to reduce such things) was a promotion to director, where he still remains. My other thoughts on that person can be described with a Ricky Tomlinson quote about Mrs Thatcher and her treatment of the striking coal miners, 

'Where you're going, you won't need coal, as it'll be bloody roasting'.

So I finally got my PCV licence in January 2019, and spent a year 'back home' trying to settle down into driving coaches, with no success and lots of accidents mainly the result of inexperience behind the wheel (like most 'new' drivers...) before I relocated to Yorkshire in the spring of 2020. As I write this in the middle of 2021, we're still in the massive chaos that is Covid 19 so there should be lots of private hire work to be doing, which isn't there.

These days I drive a minibus on a school contract whilst continuing to observe the state the industry I'm in continues to deteriorate into.  I watch the incompetent people I once worked alongside become Managing Directors whilst I've got that lovely warm feeling of having been right and little much else... 

I still hold ambitions to enter the world of operating my own vehicles, but presently have no capital, or a Transport Manager's CPC. One day, though.