It Happens Between Stops

by Mattie Lennon

  Acolleague showed me a video he got from a bus enthusiast, who travels on his route. At first when he put it on I thought he was showing it to me for historic interest. There were newsreels about Dublin’s transport and interesting footage in Black and White about the role of a Bus Driver in public transport. They looked like something you’d see in the training School. Some news footage showed coverage of strikes over the years and bus life changing with the times. One was about the trouble between Dublin Bus Conductresses and a tabloid. Back in 1984, the very few girls working in C.I.E. varied from married women, to school leavers. In a job mainly dominated by men, there was bound to be romances developing.

  However the media got the wrong end of the stick and decided to publish an article which claimed that the behaviour of the staff could only be compared to the soap opera ‘Dallas’!

  There was uproar from the clippies. They marched up to the base of the Newspaper and demanded a retraction. I was only a few months in C.I.E. at the time and a disillusioned school leaver, who was offered an application form for a job on the buses, from the Producer of the Summerhill Garage Variety group, also a driver. Somehow my sister and I got involved and auditioned when they were putting on a show. The Variety groups which were quite popular at the time, did ‘Tops of the Town’ and many charity events too. Little did I know then, that I’d one day be driving a bus myself!

  I’m now 26 years in the Company. My circumstances and home address changed a few times but I remained faithful to my job and it has given me lots of friends, hobbies and a secure income. I’ve never regretted a day.

  My colleague was particularly excited when the story came up about ‘The Sunday World’ row in 1984. A shot of Donnybrook Garage and its busy forecourt came into view. Then the camera zoomed in on four conductresses chatting as they came out of the depot. My friend asked did I recognise any of them. I only recognised two. He asked about the girl in the middle and there was something familiar about her. It was me twenty years younger!

  Memories came flooding back about the way life was for me then. I remembered being warned that the hours would be un-sociable. The uniforms were only available in men’s sizes and certainly didn’t allow for curvaceous ladies. This pretty much showed the dim forecast the company had for our survival. We were despised by senior men, but tolerated by the randy young men who fancied the idea of a woman in a blue uniform. This wasn’t as nice as it sounds. When you are knackered after rising at five A.M. and walking up and down a bus saying ‘Fares please!’ climbing stairs and inhaling cigarette smoke, the advances of the driver is only another headache.

  To put up the destination involved climbing onto the tin box which encased the ticket machine, turning handles that were rusted or covered with grease and usually breaking a fingernail or grazing your skin.

  A typical day on an early week for me started with getting up at five, to get the workman bus at five fifty up on the South Circular Road. I usually had two choices. Press snooze or have breakfast. Snooze won! Thus my lovely svelte figure in the video!

  At the garage I’d run upstairs to the canteen to get a coffee from the vending machine, go up for the running board, grab a waybill and get my machine from my locker. You loaded your tin box with bus rolls and then you’d head out to meet your driver with the bus. I got on with most of the drivers even though they often asked me to pipe down. I was very chatty!

  My social life was curtailed too. I was still in the Variety group so on breaks in the evening I often headed upstairs in the Bus Canteen in Earl Place, to rehearse after doing a part pay in at the cash office and then I’d have my packed lunch and a coke during the rehearsal. Those were fun times. I remember on one occasion when I went in to have a shot at the snooker. The driver I was with was a dab hand at it. He gave me a shot and as I stretched across to take it, a ripping sound made us stop. It was my trousers which had ripped on the inside leg!

  The gape was major and the idea of walking the decks of a bus with most of my thigh on show wasn’t nice, so I ran across to the uniform stores and fortunately got a replacement pair in time to get back to my bus for the second half of the duty.

  Looking back at times like this makes me feel old. But there have been so many changes over the years. Bus conductors are now extinct. There are new routes, a variety of cultures and nationalities among the staff and even the City we drive across has altered enormously.

  In 2008 I received a commemorative watch for my twenty five years service to Dublin Bus along with people I was in the training school with. When I look at the photograph taken on that happy occasion, it is all the reward I need and proves that the job I came into twenty five years ago, has grown and improved. Let’s hope it never stops!

  A BULL FOR BINGHAMSTOWN

  Joe Collins

  The sun was shining brightly on that Saturday afternoon in August 1955. It was the start of the Bank Holiday weekend and I, like everybody else, was hoping for a pleasant break from work.

  At the time I was a Junior Clerical Officer employed by Coras Iompair Eireann in Limerick and as the 5 day week had not yet come into being I was working that afternoon from 2 PM. to 6 PM to complete my 51/2 day week.

  At 5 PM as I was winding down the Livestock loading porter and another man entered the office and the porter said, “Sir we have a Bull for Binghamstown”.

  “Binghamstown” I said, “where is that”? The man who accompanied the porter said

  “it is in Mayo way beyond Belmullet. Before dealing with the Bull’s journey let me give you some information on the Bull.”

  He was owned by the Dept of Agriculture and was part of what was known as the Travelling Bull Scheme. He was in fact one of a group of Roaming Romeos who at that time traversed the country to increase the bovine population.

  In 1956 Artificial Insemination had not yet been in general usage and the natural method of procreation was still in full swing as was their Eco Friendliness by their use of Public Transport.

  As I pondered how I was going to tackle the problems associated with the transport of a bull over a Bank Holiday Weekend from Limerick to Binghamstown I could not understand why the bull’s next performance was not in Tipperary or some other venue closer to Limerick. I was reminded of the crazy schedules of the Dance Bands at that time; any of which in the course of their 6 day work week

  Tuesday through Sunday would criss cross the country playing Letterkenny, Limerick, Dundalk, Dingle, Westport and Waterford in that or some similar madcap geographic spread...

  But back to the Bull. Throughout his Marathon Journey he needed to be fed and watered and the bedding in the Cattle Truck had to be replaced and the dung removed. The various train drivers and train guards on the journey had to ensure that there was no rough shunting, in fact nothing could be done that would damage his masculinity.

  Now in 1955 there were no faxes, telexes, emails or mobile phones and the telephone system in operation was primitive. Before this bull could leave Limerick I had to make contact with Ballybrophy Station and North Wall Dublin to put the arrangements in train for his safe passage. Ballybrophy was not too difficult as being a station on the Dublin-Cork Mainline with an active signal cabin I got a quick response. The Station Master came on the line and having explained about the bull’s needs he assured me that at his station all the necessary feeding, watering and cleaning would be done. After all said he, “I have a family connection with farming and know the importance of pampering these premium bulls to ensure fertile performance”.

  At North Wall I was not so lucky. Firstly making contact was most difficult and when I did the person at the other end of the phone was most unsympathetic to the bull in transit. After an outburst of expletives and a tirade of abuse for daring to land him with this problem at such a late hour on the Saturday of a Bank Holiday Weekend when as he said he should be knocking back pints he went on to issue threats of what he wouldn’t do to the bull including making him fit only for Guard Duty in a Bovine Harem if he failed to get a collea
gue to come on duty in the early hours of Sunday morning to deal with the bull’s needs.

  Regarding the arrangements to be made beyond North Wall he would not get involved and left it up to me to sort that out. Luckily I had no difficulty at the intermediate stations as those to whom I spoke were of similar mind to the Station Master at Ballybrophy. They were all men with an affinity to farming and they appreciated the value of the contribution of farming to the local economy.

  My final obstacle was encountered at Ballina. Here the onward journey by road had to be arranged. Unfortunately the Station Master was on leave and was replaced by a Relief Clerk who like the Bulls in the Travelling Bull Scheme belonged to a group of Travelling Gap Fillers drafted in to Stations in the event of Illness or Annual Leave of the resident staff.

  On explaining to the Relief Clerk about the arrangements he had to make for the final leg of the journey from Ballina to Binghamstown he feigned ignorance of the names of local lorry drivers who provided services to C.I.E. from time to time on a contractual basis saying that it was his first time relieving in Ballina and he could not help. He was he said more interested in getting ready for the local hop where he might meet a Juliet than worrying about the Bovine Romeo en route to Bingham-stown.

  While pleading with him to assist he hung up on me and despite my efforts to re-establish contact I failed.

  At my wits end I phoned the local Garda Station and asked if they could provide the names of a few lorry owners who transported livestock and to their credit they came up trumps.

  Lady Luck smiled on me as the first call I made produced a willing carrier to transport Romeo to his Juliet in Bingham-stown. Because the trip would be undertaken on Sunday the carrier requested a premium payment to which I agreed even though I did not have the authority to do so and would likely have to pay the excess from my own pocket when the bill arrived. But I felt that the loss of a few pounds was nothing compared to the contribution I was making to facilitate the romantic meeting of the Travelling Tarbh and the Binghamstown Beauty.

  I never heard anything about the excess payment or if the Romantic Union produced an Issue. However the odds are that there are descendants of the Travelling Romeo and the Bellingham Beauty alive and well in Ireland today oblivious to the Herculean efforts of a Junior Clerical Officer employed by C.I.E.in Limerick to bring their ancestors together on a Sunny Bank Holiday Weekend in August 1955.

  DONNYBROOK MAINTENANCE IN THE 80's

  Pat Barrett

  This is the story of an operative in Donnybrook in the 80’s; Joe Maguire, a man in his late fifties and true blue Dubliner. He had worked for the company for many years as a labourer in Spa Road and later as a cleaner in Donnybrook. He was a quiet man who went about his business largely unnoticed by many except those who worked in proximity to him. A man of obvious habit who could be seen every day at four thirty ( finishing time in maintenance) on his loping half canter and half run down the centre yard and up Eglinton road.

  Most people were only aware of him when he went around the various canteens, gathering up discarded sandwiches and bread and breaking it up into small pieces and placing it into a small plastic bag he carried. Joe was of the old stock and wore the same clean but faded overalls for many years. This combined with the Brylcreamed hair, stuck to his head gave him the look of someone from a different era.

  My story is set in the context of his habits of gathering the bread and distributing it to the flocks of seagulls that gathered around and above him as soon as he emerged from the workshop into the centre yard. It was a sight to behold to see him throwing handfuls of bread into the air, whilst urging the birds to be patient and “wait their turn”.

  Of course the inevitable happened and the birds would shit on anything that moved after their constant and handsome meals. This was never considered a major problem, until, they followed him inside into the large garage area. Their defecating seemed to increase when inside and caused problems for the men working there. The result of this caused untold discomfort and the “unions” were informed and asked the manager to get it sorted.

  The garage manager naturally devolved responsibility to the foreman to tell Joe to “stop feeding those fucking things and drawing them inside”.The foreman whose name was Charlie, told Joe, “ if I catch you feeding them again I will sack you”. To the foreman this of course ensured Joe would cease the practise and the problem would go quietly away. However, this was not to be.

  About a week later, very early in the morning the foreman and I were working away in the office (the office overlooked the bus pits). I happened to look down onto the shop floor and noticed Joe, walking along the top of the pits and about six or seven pigeons were walking with him. I asked Charlie did he not say anything to Joe and showed him what was happening. Charlie jumped up from his chair and with anger as his mask, left the office. I could see him pursuing Joe with increasing speed, but, to my surprise Charlie stopped short and after a moment turned and returned to my office. When he arrived he was laughing and when asked, “why didn’t you say anything to Joe”? he replied “ just as I got close to Joe I noticed he was making hand gestures and I heard him say to the pigeons ‘ get up, get up for fuck sake, here’s Charlie’”.

  THE REPAIR JOB

  Thomas Carroll

  Kevin sat up in the bed his wounds almost healed, the-bandages still bloody were hurting his hands and arms;he could see bloodstains on the bed sheets. What’s the use in having a dog his mother always said if you have to do the barking? That’s how he felt now; deep down in his mind the events of the past nine days were played out in vivid detail. He could still see the hulking figure of O’Regan otherwise known as Conan the Terriblechasing him down the narrow streets of Turin; bullets’ ricocheting off high stonewalls, innocent people being shot up in the fierce crossfire. Kevin’s cover had been blown by a stupid mistake on the part of his now dead partner, Miles Murphy. Kevin and Miles were posing as plumbers trying to repair a leaking shower unit in an expensive Italian mafia gang-lord’s villa. Their real function was to take out this hardened criminal preferably alive. But due to the sloppiness of Miles Ryan and the fact that he completely busted the shower unit both men were given a hasty exit. Luckily Kevin managed to escape with his life. But only just.

  How am I ever going to rectify this situation thought Kevin as he stared at his bandaged hands and arms? I won’t be ready for action for at least two months and by that time O’ Regan will be a criminal of the distant past. Just then Nurse Michel entered the room. She was preparing to give Kevin a bed-bath which as far as he was concerned was the only nice thing about being in hospital (at least for some people). She smelled of expensive perfume so Kevin did the natural thing and began to compliment her on her choice of fragrance. “Armani or Lautrec?” Kevin asked with a deliberate smile. “Lautrec of course. It’s guaranteed to hit all the right notes for a man,” Nurse Michel said as she began scrubbing Kevin’s feet. In eight weeks Kevin had recovered; he was a healthy, fit man and his wounds healed fast. Also the extensive treatment worked wonders for his injured arms.

  He wouldn’t have a partner for the remainder of this assignment because the department were a little short staffed and anyway with so many trouble spots throughout the world they couldn’t afford to spare a single agent. So Kevin would go on the mission alone. “This envelope contains all the necessary papers that will ensure your speedy entry into Yugoslavia,” said Major Malone handing Kevin a large brown Manila envelope. “Best be on your way there’s a car waiting outside to take you to the airport. Your flight’s in three hours. Best of luck captain,” said the major as the two men got to their feet and shookhands. The major knew the chances of Kevin being successful in this operation were slim indeed; but the major did not reveal this thought. Anyone facing a difficult situation needs reassuring, that’s what the army manual stated and that’s what the major tried to convey in his voice and handshake.

  It was a bad, wet night; the rain pounding off the road made an
impenetrable spray. Kevin, drenched to the bone clutched his Mauser pistol; he hoped that it would still discharge the last 24 rounds of ammunition. If it failed he might find himself a dead man and that negative outcome just would not do. Kevin found his target and the bullet pierced his assailant’s head, the man dropped dead to the ground. Kevin grabbed the man’s automatic and his hand gun, he had a feeling he would need the weapons. Suddenly bullets exploded around him; scrambling for cover he dived behind some laundry containers. Barrels and other items exploded and shattered; automatic fire was coming from his left. He could see three men firing from behind a parked car. Kevin would have to use all his training to get out of this predicament. In the midst of all this mayhem Kevin remembered a line from the SAS Survival Manual: When you are faced with difficult situations always breathe deeply and calmly so as to fill your brain and your body with oxygen which in turn will ensure your mind thinks clearly and positively. Hence the outcome of your situation will be 99.9% successful. It’s the undetermined 0.1% that worries me thought Kevin. The SAS instructors had always taught that an agent must use all his resources even when reduced to a broken man or woman. “HeWho Dares Wins” – that was the famous motto and a principle that Kevin and many other agents were taught to live and if necessary, to die by. Kevin killed the three bodyguards and made his entry into O’Regan’s penthouse hotel suite. Carefully he opened the door and fired a round at O’Regan who yelped in pain as his automatic weapon blew out of his hand. O’Regan fell to the floor, blood pouring from his hand. Kevin ran into the room, knelt down and clamped his right foot on O’Regan’s good hand.

  “Why should I care what happens to your dirty henchmen; you are after all a bunch of criminals” said Kevin pointing the gun at O’Regan.

  “Come and work for me. You will be better paid and will be able to buy whatever riches you want in life,” O’ Regan said with a wry smile. Kevin’s gun was pressing against his chest.