I should know better

Readers may remember the Polish bus driver who has become a landmark in our local community. Well, he has now made the headlines.

I was amazed to see the little red local bus he drives appearing on BBC Scottish news. A young lady passenger who was interviewed said she had had a really hard day at work and worried that she might be hallucinating the cooker (4 burner) and chest of drawers occupying the front seats of the bus. However she was soon enlightened when the bus left the main road, detoured into a housing scheme and then stopped while the driver delivered the aforementioned goods to a Polish couple. Shock, horror ! Lots of outrage from the interviewer, and E.C. the owner of the company stated drily that in addition to smoking, liquor etc, white goods and other furnishings would now also be prohibited on his buses.

Well, I`m old enough to remember when local country buses carried parcels and post.

And I remember once catching the bus from Thurso to Wick after a really socially exhausting and memorable time in Stromness, and falling asleep, confident that after all the bus didn`t go beyond Wick. I woke just before we got there, and the conductress asked,

"You are for Wick?"

I assured her I was.

"Well, that`s a relief. We didn`t know, and didn`t like to wake you, so we stopped at every road end on the way and had a good look at you, and tried to work out if you looked as if you might be related to the people who lived there.."

Now that`s a bus service.

Perhaps we could do with some more Polish drivers here.

And perhaps the one we have would do better with another local company, whose blue buses every December are festooned with Christmas decorations (mainly paperchains and other dangly glitter) and have been known to stop at doors along the morning route and collect regular passengers who have slept in.