The Badge of Art
Page 41
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riA TWENTY years old Birmingham Corporation bus conductor with a talent for art was so fed up with being ribbed by his mates because he was too young to drive a bus, that he altered the colour and number of a conductor's badge so that it became, in effect, a driver's badge.
"The next time they were rubbing it in, I pulled out the altered badge and 'said, What about this then? ' ", the conductor, Lionel Watkins, of Holcombe Road, Birmingham, told the West Midlands Traffic Commissioners at a special inquiry in Birmingham on Monday.
Watkins, who also admitted altering a second badge which he later gave away, said he had not made the alterations for personal gain and would not have tried to have driven with a forged badge, had he got the chance.
The Commissioners, who had ordered him to appear so that they could decide whether to revoke or suspend his badge on the ground that he was not a fit person to hold a licence, accepted his explanation and let him off with a warning.