" Gangster " Tactics Put Buses Off the Road
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A S the provincial bus stoppage got r-Ainto its stride, guerilla tactics by strikers forced several companies not affected .by the dispute to take their vehicles off the road. Windows were smashed and tyres let down when pickets failed to induce drivers to abandon their buses, and passengers and crews were injured.
At Ilkeston, near Nottingham, a driver was taken to hospital after he had been dragged out of his cab and attacked with a crowbar. He was driving a Felix coach, owned by Mr. N. Frost, of Stanley, Derbyshire, on a service run between Ilkeston and Derby. Although the vehicle had a police car escort, about 100 strikers surrounded it in heavy traffic and smashed side and rear windows before the bus was stopped through colliding with the police ear.
Mr. Frost, who has been proprietor of the eight-coach business for 30 years, told The Commercial Motor: " I It'ad to take all my buses off the road after that incident, because three of them had already been damaged on Saturday.
None of my men is in the Union, and we have had trouble from strikers in the past, but never anything as bad as this."
Another non-Union company, W. Gash and Sons, Newark, were also forced to discontinue their services. Three of their 25 vehicles were put out of action over the week-end in what Mr. Alan Gash described as "gangster tactics," and he decided to withdraw his buses " in the interests of passengers' and drivers' safety."
In Nottingham itself, Skill's Motor Coaches, Ltd., withdrew works and stage-service vehicles because the management were worried about the safety of passengers and employees. Four of their vehicles were damaged by pickets over the week-end.
Police reinforcements were called to Nottingham Central Bus Station several times. Once they cleared away pickets who were trying to stop four non-Union employees of Barton Transport, Ltd., from driving coaches away on road cruises. Stink bombs and tomatoes were hurled at drivers who started longdistance tours from Cardiff bus station. Sugar and sand were poured into the fuel tanks of the coaches, Which belonged to the Western Welsh Omnibus Co., Ltd. When this failed; nails were driven into the tyres and newspapers were stuffed into exhaust pipes.
The strike was extended in Lancashire when buses run by W. C. Standerwick, Ltd., Blackpool, came to a standstill. The manager, Mr. F. Briggs, said the company were given 20 minutes' notice that crews were stopping work. although Standerwick's had been exempted from the strike by the Unions.
Later, Scout Motor Services, Ltd., associates of Ribble Motor Services, Ltd., announced that they were taking all their vehicles off the road.
London Transport • country bus and Green Line coach crews'refused to operate services from the London Transport boundary at Tring to Aylesbury.