Dylan Winter gets on board with a bunch of double-decker bus fanatics!
"It’s a disease," says Mick who is married to Wendy. They met on a bus. He was the driver and she was his clippie. Wendy accepts with equanimity she is her husband's second great love; the bus gets prime position, "Ever since we met, he’s been involved with buses - we used to spend Sunday afternoons driving up to the London Garages collecting bus numbers - he has to have his fix."
Vicky’s a more reluctant passenger on the double-decker bus of life, "I’m not one of those devoted bus people - I’ve lived with them for 30 years!" Vicky's married to Malcolm, who explains his fascination with to Dylan, "You feel very satisfied when you’ve been out. There’s apprehension beforehand - are you going to get to where you want to go to. After, there’s a certain amount of elation - it can be quite hard work if you’ve been any distance... you can quite exhausted if you’ve been any distance." "Shattered, satisfied, exhausted?" Dylan queries. "Yes," says Malcolm, "It reminds me of something else!"
But one couple, Pam and Dave think they should both be in the driving seat, "The whole buzz of it is is there’s a tremendous camaraderie between bus owners. At a bus rally, everyone gets together on one bus to have tea or champagne," says Dave. "Your missus gets off on driving buses doesn’t she?" says Dylan. "That’s right! She drives. I do all the hard work and she does all the pleasure bits..."
Pam waxes lyrical, "It’s like a drug. You get into a cab of a bus, and it’s completely different from driving a car. You’re concentrating so much on your driving, that when you get out of a cab your mind is a complete blank. It’s as good as a fix. I’v never had a drug, but it’s what I imagine it to be. I get out of the cab on a high. I can get into the cab with the worrries of the world on my shoulder, I get out of the cab and I’m nice to everyone."
