When was the last time you used a bus? I am not asking about the one that takes you, in some airports, from the terminal to your aeroplane, or waiting, if you’re lucky, for you to deplane, but a public one? If you live in the country, I suspect not recently, as in not this decade; the paucity of a good timetable and routes means if you want to return the same day, you drive your car. Growing up in Balcombe, some 18 miles north of here, the only way to get into Haywards Heath, the nearest town about 5 miles away, was on a single-decker bus; unless you walked just under a mile to the railway station and caught a train. The bus took you past the Ouse Valley Viaduct and over a small hump-backed bridge that spanned the river. Sitting in the back gave you a lift!
Here in Brighton & Hove we have a good reliable bus service that uses both diesel and electric buses to cover the whole city. In addition there is a frequent service from the city west, via Littlehampton, Bognor Regis and Chichester, to Portsmouth, provided by Stagecoach and its Coastliner 700 buses.
From home in Albany Villas we can simply walk up the road and have the option of two bus stops, each on a different route, giving us four buses to choose from; spoilt for choice one might say! So most week days we travel into Brighton’s Churchill Square and walk the few hundred metres to the Yoga-In-The-Lanes Studio in Middle Street. Those who travel by bus are an interesting cross section of the city’s inhabitants, although not equally representative!
I notice some individuals queue for a few minutes before the bus comes along but seem surprised they have to pay, so fumble in their pocket or bag for a bus pass or card. It’s always interesting how the passengers on the lower deck accommodate the differing needs of the wheel chair users, the walking sticks of those needing support and the mums with push chairs. One young mother has twins and her double buggy takes up a great deal of room. Most passengers are lost in their own world, interacting with some form of social media, staring straight ahead to avoid eye contact, or using their phone to talk to someone. I love eavesdropping on anyone’s conversation but if they’re not using English I just get irritated!
And what do you do when someone plonks their feet, encased in their shoes, on the seat? Despite the sign asking them not to!
One chap had his whole leg on the seat and his facial expression suggested no one should challenge him, irrespective of whether his designer trainers have poo on them! Nice huh! And little dogs I understand, as they are often in a small pouch (pooch in a pouch?), but a Labrador??
There remains a lot of ‘Covid’ about, laid on top of the normal winter influenza viruses and you might think individuals would take some responsibility for their own health and be aware of those around them. A week or so before Christmas a non-mask-wearing woman came onto the bus with lots of shopping in plastic bags and, wheezing and sighing loudly, squeezed herself into a seat. Five minutes later she sneezed and tried to restrict the spread of the mucous by putting her hand over her nose! Well, that’s OK because we all sneeze sometimes – having a handkerchief or not is another matter. I later observed her, I assume completely subconsciously, grab a vertical handrail with the hand she had sneezed into ………. (and here I should insert one of those little emoji things).
There are few masks in evidence even though it’s flu season and why wouldn’t you wear one? Maybe I am being ridiculous? We have lived with everyone else’s germs for millennia and generally our immune system copes well, but on my birthday last October I baulked at blowing out the candles on my birthday cake!! Don’t think about it too long, but you can understand the dilemma?
The route takes us through Palmeira Square, where we looked at an apartment to buy back in 2012, before we found our gorgeous one here in Amber House, and along Western Road. There’s a new sculpture of bronze-looking fish by the bus stop in Norfolk Square.
It was created by local artist Steve Geliot and is made of three 180 year-old cast iron dolphins which used to form part of the Victoria Fountain in Old Steine in central Brighton. The fountain was renovated in 1990 and the dolphins removed; obviously they didn’t fit the new design brief! They had been stored in Stanmer Park in Brighton ever since.
Further along the bus stop is named ‘Waitrose’, as it’s outside a branch of the supermarket chain, although every other stop is named after a local road or square. After Clarence Square and the announcement we should alight here for the ‘Brighton i360’, we arrive in Churchill Square, a mishmash of architectural styles dominated on the north side by a 1960’s modern building and on the south side by a shopping centre.
Some of the buses on the route are electric and have USB charging points everywhere; these are extremely popular! And the city has an ‘ultra-low emissions zone’ to encourage more environmentally friendly means of transport. Mentioning electric-powered buses reminds me of a great BBC series on television – “The Secret Genius of Modern Life” where Professor Hannah Fry uncovers the secrets behind some of the technologies we have come to rely on. She investigates the Fitbit, Alexa, trainers and electric cars. Did you know that Thomas Edison drove an electric car? It is still drivable today.
But being a child at heart, I was completely taken in by her simplistic demonstration of how to build a basic electric motor! So, if you’re interested:
Take a power source, say an ordinary battery
Attach some bent paper clips to each end with some masking tape
Take a piece of copper wire and wind it around something circular, say a biro. If the wire has some insulation, strip that back using some sandpaper or wire-stripper.
If you don’t have any little magnets (?) go down to your hardware store and buy some. Place the magnets on the battery under the coiled wire and Hey! Ho! It’ll turn!
This is the first postcard of 2023; there will be more!
Richard 6th January 2023
postcards 