大象传媒

My father Burt Barnes was part of the home guard during the war and one of his duties was to patrol around Carfax, he particularly enjoyed this aspect of his job because he got the chance to stand on Carfax tower and view the town.

One incident that makes us all chuckle is when as part of his home guard duties he had to be a bus driver.
With people being called up for the various services meant that Oxford were short of local service people such as doctors, shopkeepers and bus drivers.

This particular evening dad was called upon to drive the bus that went from the city centre towards Stadhampton - he had driven lorries and big vehicles before but never a bus.

He had only a few passengers and he managed to get them to Stadhampton without to much hassle, however it was the journey back that proved difficult.

He left Stadhampton about 9pm and unfortunatly this clashed with the blackout. This caused him problems as he was not allowed to switch his lights on and had to drive in pitch black.

Apparently there are some dodgy roads back from Stadhampton and he managed to find a ditch on his way back.

Fortunatly he escaped any damage - unlike the bus which was written off. He had to walk from Stadhampton to Oxford (which he claims took him less than an hour - 9 miles!)
However we are sure that he hitched a ride from someone in Stadhampton.

I don't think they trusted him with Bus driving duties after that.

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