Women at war in transport
Page 28
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IN YOUR 75th Anniversary Number (CM March 15) you printed a feature containing extracts not entirely complimentary to the conductresses at the end of the Great War.
Now, I cannot comment on events in these years, but I have knowledge of some yeoman work done by conductresses at the Western National depots at Dartmouth, Kingsbridge and Plymouth: No doubt other depots and companies worked the same system, but I have seen the workings on the Dartmouth /Plymouth route No 93.
The through vehicle was usually a single-deck Bristol 32seater, or thereabouts, and the service was strengthened by one and sometimes two Dennis 20-seaters, which worked to an immediate point and either returned from that point as a timing in its own right or as a relief to the incoming service.
One conductor or conductress used to work these two vehicles, and I have known all three vehicles to be worked by one person.
The crews from these depots, both men and women, certainly pulled their weight in 1 9391945. WILFRED H. MAYLINS Woodford Bridge Essex