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3 - Rosemary Mcateer (born 1916) talks about her work as a bus conductress in the War:

"When War broke out in September ’39, they started calling up the men, and unless you were in what they called a ‘reserved occupation’ you would be called up for war work. Well,I didn’t want to go into a factory, I just hate the idea of being shut in anywhere, and so then they started saying you know, advertising for people to go on the buses, so I went on the buses then. You had to write to go on, and then you had to go for an interview at the Stratford Blue garage, and then you had to go to the Labour Exchange to register that you had been accepted on the buses. This was compulsory, and so that was how I came to go on the buses — I loved the open-air life. We started in October — I was the third one on the buses, there were two more women before me, and we started there at eightpence an hour, which was old money, and we worked for that for about six months, and we decided we wanted more money, so we got a rise. I had been made Union Secretary, so we all got together and decided that was it. There was about nine of us by then, this is coming up the following June time, and we had discovered we were so much underpaid to what the Midland Red were, being from Leamington and Birmingham you see, and we were doing quite a lot of Midland Red work, so they decided to give us a penny an hour rise, which brought us up to ninepence, which for working about eighty to ninety hours a week you would take home about two pounds nineteen and six by the time they had stopped tax (this was in 1940).

When I first started I think there were four men left then, and I think we were sent out with one of those to train. They usually gave you about 10 days’ learning, and I started on a Monday and I went out with this conductor; you were sent on different routes each day you see, to learn the different routes and that, because of the War, in case we were invaded so that nobody would know where they were.

I went out with him from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and on the Friday somebody had failed to turn up so I was sent out on my own, and do you know, I well remember it, I did the first bus to Evesham in the morning, and came back all round Temple Grafton, and I had fifty-six passengers on a thirty-six seater bus, and we go down to the bottom of Bordon Hill coming in and the Inspector, Heritage, was waiting to check us — they used to check you in, they used to get on the buses and check all the tickets, amd make certain you hadn’t got anybody without a ticket on, and I well remember him saying to me: ‘Well, miss, you’ve done well, but I bet you’ve missed somebody.’ I was so worried in case I had, and he went round and checked everybody’s ticket and he came back and said ‘Well done’ — and do you know I’ve never forgotten that, it was such a boost really to think that I’d done that all on my own, and then after that I was on my own, and as the new girls came, so you trained the new girls.

We had to write all our own tickets then; we used to have a little square machine, and there was a little hole in the top, and on the top there were six sections, there was the in, and the out on it, and you used to have to write the price down on the ticket, and whether it was a single or a return, and what stage they got on, and then you used to have to keep what they called a weighbill, so that at every stage you used to have to write down how many passengers you had got on your bus, and how many tickets you had issued — they don’t do that today.

The regular routes were Stratford to Evesham, round Luddington and Welford, and there was another one round Binton and the Graftons into Bidford and then down Salford Priors and that way, and then there was the Shipston route, there was the Leamington route round through Wolverton and Norton Lindsey, and then round Wellesbourne and Barford which was a Midland Red route which we used to run extras on - a Friday was always a very busy day, we used to do Ilmington, Mickleton, Kineton to Banbury, which was really worked from the Kineton garage, but we used to have to go on a Thursday and Saturday to help out because those were the two busy days there, and we used to have about seven buses at Kineton, and then oh where else did we go? We used to run relief buses to Birmingham with the Midland Red and quite often we used to go - the last bus from Stratford was nine o’clock - and quite often we used to go with that one to Birmingham, and when you got to Birmingham the inspector would ask if you would like to do a run to Coventry, then back from Coventry to Birmingham and back from Birmingham to Stratford, get back into the garage about one o’clock in the morning.

The thing of it was then there were hardly any cars on the roads, because people couldn’t get petrol, you could only get petrol if you were — like a farmer got so much petrol allowed him, or if you lived in the country where there was no bus route you could get petrol.

We used to go round on the one particular run that we did, we used to leave Stratford at four o’clock in the morning and go to Banbury Ally Works — the Aluminium Works where they made munitions, and then we used to get back into Stratford about eight o’clock, and we would work then until about one or two o’clock, then you’d finish for the day there. (On the late shifts) if it was a foggy night you could get in at any time, because there was no lights on the buses you see then, the only lights you had were — the headlights were covered, and there was just three little slits because of the blackout, and then the sidelights were covered in, there was just about an inch round circle, a little C for that, and of course there were no white lines on the roads then, and no kerbs, I mean it was just a grass verge, so in particular on the Cheltenham run , coming back all round there and all round the villages there, you used to walk in front of the bus to keep the bus on the road if it was a very foggy night, with either a newspaper or a handkerchief, so the driver knew where he was.

There were bad routes where we had trouble, especially on the Pioneer Corps from Long Marston, they were awful they were. We used to fetch them in the evening and take them back at night, and sort them out occasionally — we would just let them know who’s boss, it was your bus and you were in charge. It was always drink — the worst of all were the Canadian Air Force from Wellesbourne, especially the aircrews, if they had got a girl with them, we were treated as if we were a common girl, and I mean, some of them would be so rude sometimes. I could always deal with them, I always had my own way with them: I would stand at the top of the bus - it was a front door loader you see and there were two steps down — stand at the top of the bus and as they went to go, I put my foot out and tripped them into the ditch, and word got round then, no fooling with me!

The only time that I was really frightened was, we used to take the — there was a lot of Irishmen there working on the airfields, and we used to have them from the Atherstone area, three or four buses that used to take them through to Coventry which had no conductor because they were contract buses. But we had a double decker that fetched a load into Stratford, and you’d have perhaps seventy-odd on the bus, but if you issued forty tickets you were very lucky, because one would buy six tickets and they would be passed on down the bus there, and I mean there were too many to argue with about it. One night when I was walking back down the bus — we had to wear skirts when I first started, and I mean, skirts on a double decker were not very good really - and as I was walking down the bus this one caught my skirt you see, and shouted ‘she’s blue ones on tonight!’ and I hit him on the head with my punch and I split his head open, and they were going to throw me off the bus and there was no chance of getting in touch with the driver you see, because the double deckers then were back loaders, back door loaders, so you just took your chance, and they were going to throw me through the window, they were going to do this that and the other, and I was literally terrified, and I didn’t let them see I was terrified, I just said I wouldn’t collect any more tickets and stood on the back of the bus.

I was up before the manager the next day; of course the police were involved because he had to go to hospital to have stitches in the head, and I told them what happened, and the police chief said he fully agreed with what I’d done, and he told the manager that from then on he would have to arrange for either a man to travel on the bus, or to make it a contract bus, so it was made a contract bus. We still had to travel on it, but we didn’t have to go amongst them you see, because a double decker in those days wasn’t allowed out without a conductor, not like today, I mean, there’s just the driver on it; there had to be a conductor, and so that made it a private bus. The thing that worried me about it really was — there were some young girls that were only about eighteen, and I often wonder what would have happened if it had been one of them that had been involved, see; I was twenty-five then, I knew how to handle them I suppose."

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