When the Stagecoach depot where I work lost the contract to run Megabus services from our local area I was pretty fed up. I’ve always hated running in small circles in a town environment and that was pretty much all Stagecoach in Winchester did. For four months I’ve been pretty miserable and only stayed working there in the belief that nothing lasts forever. It’s because I had little enthusiasm for the job that I stopped blogging. And now, thanks to Hampshire County Council, things have changed which you can read about here. It was decided that these services would be operated on their own rota system with three full time drivers on the rota, with a few others doing one duty a week each, and I was fortunate enough to get a place on the rota!

I’ve just completed my first full week and feel pleased about doing these runs. It may sound straightforward to run from Winchester to Salisbury but this is a rural service so straight lines are unheard of, it could best be described as meandering from Winchester to Salisbury. The actual meanderings vary almost every journey, the route number remains the same but the places you go vary on the time of day. There seem to be more variations on this route than opening gambits in chess!

Often I’m a little cheeky with my passengers, if they say something like “Do you go past the hospital?” I ask them “How far past do you want to go!”. Or, “Do you stop at the Rail Station?” I reply “Only if someone rings the bell”. This week, unknowingly, one of them got their own back on me. They simply held up a concessionary pass and kept walking past me. “Where are you going I asked?” as my fingers hovered over the ticket machine (despite Concessionary passes giving free travel a ticket, at nil cost, must issued). “I’m going to sit down!” was the answer!