Women Keep the Bus Wheels Turning
Page 31
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IT is not very often that we get the 4pportunity of giving the women a page to themselves, but recent references in these columns to bus condixotoresses have resulted in quite a weight of correspondence dealing with the part that women are playing, not only on the rear platforms of passenger service vehicles, but also in the control cabins of such machines.
First, however, we must go back a bit, in fact to the period of the 191419l conflict. As many will recall, there were "clippies " then, as now, but with the open-top decks it was a somewhat tougher job. This fact no doubt accounts for the somewhat cumbersome attire in which many of these women performed their duties, although, judged. by modern concepts, that age was not one in which women achieved much (if any) sat Through the courtesy of Barton Transport, Ltd., of Weston, Nottingham, we are able to reproduce a picture of three of the earliest "Clippies." The person in the centre of the picture started, in 1909, cm the Long Eaton to Nottingham ro ut e, and later became a bus driver on the Nottingham to Saudiacre route, The -postscript to the letter referring to these women, which ac corn panied the photograph, sa ys: " They dressed warm, knitted their o w n woollen stockings, and are happy and prosperous to-day, with families."
Now we come to the somewhat more ambitious side of passenger-vehicle service, a sphere.in which women have been employed only to a limited extent. We refer to the driving of buses and coaches, a job which carries with it a very real responsibility.
One . of the accompanying illustrations shows a group of five women drivers, all in the service of the E.astern National Omnibus Co,., Ltd., one of the' companies in the Tilling group. If one may judge from their air of gaiety it wbuld seem that they are happy in their work.
The second picture of women drivers is somewhat reminiscent of those that one gets from the United States, but we can assure " C.M.readers that these women have not just posed for a photograph in bus-drivers' uniform by way of advertisement. We learn from Worthington Motor Tours, Ltd., from which concern this picture comes,, that the company employs 14 fully competent Women drivers and that, _ eventually, it is intended to increase this figure to 40.
In October, fit 1942, this concern started a trainiag scheme for women bus drivers, and it has proved so successful that the only barrier to increasing the number. is the lack of suitable applicants directed to the company by the Ministry of Labour.
At the present time Worthington Motor Tours, Ltd., operates 70 public service vehicles on contract work for Government departments, and it is on this work that the women are now engaged.
We feel sure that everyone in the passenger-vehicle field will wish all these women, and others who may be doing similar work, the best of luck at the wheel.