Red faces over tartan bus
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• The top brass in Glasgow Corporation Transport were gathered with directors at the Carrick Furniture company in the city. Champagne was cooling in ice buckets, smiles were wide, and there was much back-slapping.
The occasion was the launching from the Carrick offices of a new bus, painted in the bright ,red tartan of the Clan MacGregor. The vehicle was scheduled to go into service around the city streets as a publicity gimmick for the company.
But as minutes ticked by and there was no sign of the bus, the smiles began to fade. Almost half-an-hour after it was supposed to set off on its opening run the news came through — the bus had broken down on a trial trip.
And what made the faces of the transport department officials match the bright tartan was the fact that the bus had been given a complete overhaul and put through the DoE test only the previous day.
Even when the bus was towed to the premises of Carrick there were problems. Cars were parked outside the building so the driver was unable to get it close to the pavement — and the bus almost started a traffic jam.
Photographers who had been invited to record the "taking off" ceremony then set up a series of pictures with two models hauling the bus away with ropes — a publicity man's dream but a nightmare for the corporation officials, embarrassed on what should have been a prestige day for them.