Tram approaching Fox & Goose. Date not known That particular tram first used in 1928	High Street City centre facing Dale End Lower Bull Street to left Albert Street to right. Date not known but possibly 60's.	New Street near to junction with Corporation Street. Date not known but that bus removed from service c1960.	Bull Ring. Date not known.	City Centre to Elmdon (Now Birmingham ) Airport c1952
28A about to leave Fox & Goose.	56B At Fox & Goose	Pegging the Bundy. 56B Fox to Town. Any information on driver would be appreciated. c1952 Possibly called Wilkins, but not confirmed.	No 11 Outer Ring Fox & Goose facing Stechford direction	28A coming along Hodge Hill Common towards Fox.
Trams at Fox & Goose. Probably taken 1949/50	No 10 at the Fox	Eric Cadwallader. Taken at Washwood Heath Garage.	Geoff Kelland with Driver George Marmion. Taken at Perry Barr Garage	You never know where the Inspector could be! Caddy playing the fool
This one taken on the retirement of Inspector Baird at Hockley Garage and shows the full inspectorate staff of the time.c 1967. From left to right they are       ; George Cross (DOS) Inspector Ward Freddie Walker Inspector Popplewell Inspector Green Inspector Gillies Inspector Baird Arthur Gadd Frank Waldron Norman Wormall Pat O'Connor W Strathan Pat (Joe) O'Shea.	Roseberry Street		Leyland	Exiting Hill St 1964
Trolley outside Colliers. Swan. No date	Daimler	Guy Arab. Acocks Green	Ambrose and Nancy Whyte (nee Mee) Who met at Washwood Heath whilst working as Driver and Conductress in the 1960's. Nancy passed away 29th January 2012.

All dates are approximate. My appreciation to Mike Neale who has supplied the first 12 of these photographs.

Conductors all.(Below)  From l-r standing  Tony Cole (Sadly RIP a few years ago) Me, Trevor Greasley (light cardy) Trevor Arthur, Roger Davies, Pete Thompson, Barry "mousey" Stewart. Colin Cole in front of me with Cedric (Ricky)  Cole and John Barrett at front. As you can see beer shampoos were the norm in the early 60's. If memory serves me correctly, this was outside the 2 Hands Pub, Shard End one Sunday morning! I believe that Trevor Greasley  went to Australia to work on the trams. Cedric and Colin Cole  also emigrated to Australia a good few years ago.

I recently completed a document highlighting my whole working life. The below is from the section dedicated to my time "on the buses".

 From the age of 14, I had always wanted to be a Policeman. So at 17 I tried to join Birmingham City Police Cadets. Having been told my academic qualifications did not meet the required standards, I should come back at 19 and apply for the regulars. So where could I go to kill the waiting time? I would go on the buses for 12 months and then apply again. That 12 months became 9 years! This is what happened:-

June 27th 1960. Whilst I had requested to work at the Washwood Heath bus garage, my initial week for the Transport was at the training school, which at that time was based at Liverpool Street.

There were 14 joining with me, we were taught the rules and regulations of being a bus conductor. At the end of the day my head hurt and all I had learnt was how many ways that you could get the sack!

In the time leading up to starting, I had taken a greater interest in how conductors, on the buses that I travelled on, went about their business, the ease of how they issued the tickets, gave change, rang the bell and how they behaved in general.

I remember thinking that I could do that easily. Then they gave me a ticket machine to practise with.

The Ultimate machine! Was really a very simple ticket producing system, that is until I got my hands on one. If you can remember, it was a piece of silver coloured metal about 10" long, 6" deep and 4" wide. At the front it had sections each with its' own sliding lever, which when pressed down, caused tickets of varying amounts to be issued.

At the time I joined, I can remember that the ticket in the one end of the machine was a 1 p at the far end it was 8p. I cannot remember now what the other values were.

Anyway, back to my first practice, which I thought would be easy! What a nightmare! Push the lever down once you get one ticket. Not me, I had my first go and finished up with about 10 tickets looking like a ticker tape welcome hanging from the front of the machine. By the time I got home that night my fingers were twitching and quite sore, but I was starting the get the hang of it.

We were also taught how to load a role of tickets into the machine when the previous roll had become exhausted. We were regaled with tales about conductors, carrying out the change on the rear platforms of moving buses, who had dropped the tickets as the bus was moving thereby leaving a trail of tickets floating from the back of the bus like a streamer.

I could joke and say that we had to learn parrot fashion the conductor's litany of phrases. They were, "hold on tightly, Move down the bus, only 2 upstairs, or room for 3 inside", "No it is too early for your oap pass", but really that would not be the truth. That would come naturally when we did the job for real!

I was then presented with my uniform, which we were told had to be kept in a clean and pressed condition. I went home, put it on and spent the rest of the night looking in a mirror from a dozen angles, well after all, it was the first time I had worn a coat and trousers that matched in colour!

Over the remaining days we were taught how to issue tickets to make up the various ticket amounts. There was a set structure of what tickets could be used to make the correct fare. There was a lot to learn. We would wander around the class with the machine and cash bag on, issuing tickets to each other. We all got through that first week with no drop outs or failures. I received my green and white conductors badge number DD 52147.

The following Monday I reported at Washwood Heath Garage at 6am, I can remember that my mother got me up at 5am and made me eat a full breakfast.

Over the next few weeks I would be posted to an experienced conductor, who would supervise my training. It proved to be a great time and good friendships started, some of which still exist today.

Back to that first day, my garage only ran 2 routes. The 55, that operated from city to Shard End and the 56 that covered the route from city to Newport Road, Castle Bromwich, near to what was the Clock Garage. My first day would be on the 55.

My trainer was a chap called Tommy Hearns. Over that week I was to find out that he really knew his job.

I remember that we left the garage about 6.20 and made our way to the Shard End terminus, which at that time was in Packington Avenue. Our driver was a man called Jim Padmore, a very well respected driver, who was known to be a flier, in that when­ever possible, he would run early. This, being almost a hanging offence, if caught. The conductors loved working with him because it meant if you were close to the bus in front, you would carry less passengers. Of course you also hated being on the bus that followed him because you carried more.

When we arrived at Shard End, Tommy said that he would issue tickets downstairs and look after the bell, I would do the upstairs. Remember there were no front loading buses at that time, only those with the open back. Before we had gone very far, the bus was full. Slowly I issued tickets to all the upstairs passengers. When I reached the front of the bus and turned round to go back to the stairs, as I did so it looked like every one of the upstairs passengers, knowing that I was obviously a new trainee, seemed to be looking at me. I can remember to this day how I coloured up. With Tommy's assistance, I got through both that day and the following week without any major mishaps. I followed that with a training period on the 56 route. My trainer there being a man called Mick O'Reilly, another very good trainer.

After that period of training, it was decided that Icould now take on the role on my own. Thosefirst few days were hard but you either learnt or wentback to somewhere like Veritys. I learnt!

Now Washwood Heath, before being used for buses, had been a tram garage. The status of being a tram driver was still strong amongst a few of the former tram drivers. Whilst they had all been retrained as bus drivers, certain rituals had to be obeyed. The one that stuck out the most was the canteen, where the former tram drivers always sat on the left side of the room. If you had conducted on trams, you could sit there also. I nearly made the mistake the first day until put right by Tommy.

You could often tell if your driver was an ex-tram-­man. Most drivers, as they should, pulled up close to the kerb when allowing passengers to get on or off. You often found the tram drivers would rarely pull in too close. It was almost as if they thought that they were still running on the tram tracks in the centre of the road. There were exceptions of course.

Another way of telling was that when passengers were loading, some old tram drivers would always let the bus creep very slowly forward. A situation that often brought abusive comments from the passengers, but it was always the conductor who bore the brunt.

Another way you could tell if you were with a former tram driver was that invariably they called their conductor a guard. A term going back to tramway procedures over many years.

A number 10 tram coming along Washwood Heath Rd having just turned out of High Street, Saltley. Circa 1950

In addition to the former tram drivers, there were a few conductors who had worked on the trams. I can say that those that still remained, had found the transition to buses easier to manage than some of the drivers had.

One of the former tram drivers was a man called Bruce. An absolute character, in short, a bit of a barrack room lawyer, of the nicest kind. Bruce was not afraid of anyone, including the Inspectors.

The stories that were related about Bruce were legendry. One such infamous one was when only trams ran from the depot.

It must first be explained that like the 2 routes that operated from the garage when I joined, only 2 tram routes were run from the garage.

One ran from city centre to the Pelham the other going from the city centre to the Fox and Goose at Ward End. Whilst both took different routes from the city centre on arriving near to Saltley Road, they both used the same line of track and over head power lines. They would remain on the same track until they arrived at Saltley Gate, where one would automatically be diverted up Alum Rock and the other up Washwood Heath Road. The number 8 went up Alum Rock and the 10 Washwood Heath.

Occasionally the switching system failed, as it did this one evening. When the system failed, a member of the spare crew had to be stationed at Saltley Gate to manually operate the switch gear so that each tram went on its correct route.

This particular evening, the spare crew man was Bruce. He was on punishment detail, having been too late to take his tram out that morning. He had been sent home with orders to report back at 5pm.

Anyway Bruce took up his duties and for the first few hours everything went well. I did forget to say that Bruce liked a drink or 4 and the pubs he usually retired to were situated at Saltley Gate. The main ones being the Tilt, which stood on the corner of Adderley Road and Alum Rock, and the Gate Inn which stood on the opposite side of High Street.

The regulars in the pubs realised that Bruce was on duty outside and offered him a drink, which of course he did not refuse. How many he had, has never been identified, but it will suffice to say that the routing of the different trams was reduced to chaos with the Washwood trams going up Alum Rock and the Pelham ones going up Washwood Heath. Bruce being Bruce, managed to escape severe punishment and lived to gather more notoriety as the years passed.

When all trams reached the outer termini, it was the duty of the conductor (Guard), with the use of a very long pole, to remove the electricity connection from the overhead cable and then walking along the trams length, re-connect so that the tram could commence its return journey. All the driver had to do was walk to the other end of the tram where duplicate driving controls were placed.

The change over for the conductor was fairly easy, however problems did arise when the tram was taken off the road or at the end of a shift when it was necessary for the tram to be placed over a pit in the garage.

Of course electric cables ran all over the garage ceiling to enable the trams to retain power. In order to get the tram over the pit it was necessary for the conductor to have to negotiate many different cables, often walking backwards holding the long Connection pole.

One evening when one such tram was being maneuvered into position, the driver heard a scream. Stopping the tram and jumping out, he found that his conductor, in his haste to position the tram had forgotten the 6 foot deep inspection pit. He was now dangling over the edge grimly hanging on to the pole, which luckily had remained connected to the overhead cable.

The conductor was of course helped out of his predicament. His name was Eric . By the time I arrived at the garage he was a driver and would shortly to be promoted to Inspector and whilst an age difference existed, he would become a very good influence on my future. He sadly passed away a good few years back, still a fairly young man.

The garage seemed to be full of characters. Amongst the drivers I have already mentioned Jim Padmore, there was also Eric Howell, a former Paratrooper, who always looked like he was going on parade, an exceptionally smart man, who always wore a small set of Para wings on his uniform, he was also a very hard man. Then there was Harry James, whilst the same name as the band leader, that is where the similarity ended. A master of quick wit and sharp retort, not many got the better of him. We even had our own Wyatt Earp.

Then there was Bob , a very quiet individual with a strong Cornish accent. Hardly ever spoke too much unless you started the conversation. Rumour had it that he had served in Special Forces during the war. Two things went to support that rumour for me was, when on one set of nights I got him talking about jungle warfare. I will say no more  than, he described to me how effective a man's hands can be in dealing with enemy soldiers. The other occasion was when a rather large belligerent passenger boarded our bus and decided he would attack Bob and me. He was still unconscious when the police arrived and he hadn't even got anywhere near me.

Another former soldier, who has remained a friend , is Bill Jones. An extremely smart man, he also gave me a steer in the direction my life and appearance should take. Bill would eventually become an Inspector, Bus driving instructor and on leaving the bus service, the licensee of a number of local pubs including the Tilt at Saltley, the Cross Guns, which was next to the bus garage, before moving to the Dog and Doublet, at Bodymoor Heath from where he eventually retired.

In those days the best drivers were those, who even in the worst conditions, did not throw you around and always braked smoothly. Sadly that does not always seem to be the case today!

On the inspecting staff were also a couple of real characters. Inspector Alf Read, always known as "Big Louie". About 6.4" tall, his party piece was to leave the bus when it was still travelling at a fair rate of speed by lowering his body using the bus hand rails and pushing himself backwards away from the bus. Never did see him fall. Alf passed away around late 1969 I believe.

Another Inspector, who this time put fear into  driver and conductor alike, was Charlie Peel. There was no room for error with Charlie, if he caught you doing something outside the rules, he reported you. You always knew where you stood.

Charlie had been a tank commander during the 1939­45 war and had fought in North Africa. It was clear when you did get him to talk he had taken part in some serious action. I have to say I always liked him.

After a short period of time I was given a permanent post on the 55 rota, which is what I wanted.

By this time I wanted to be a bit of an individual and so I had started wearing my ticket machine and money bag, lower down on my hips. The majority of the older staff wore theirs almost under their breast area. I believe that I and some of the younger staff, who also adopted the same style, fancied ourselves as "gunslingers". You have to remember, young people working as conductors, was a new thing in late 1960.

Over the next few years, aided by the money I earned from countless hours of overtime, I managed to really enjoy myself. This was not a job, this was a way of life, I never wanted to go home. (And often didn't). I had a few great pals and we all had the same outlook. For those of you who watched the TV programme On the Buses, well, that did not scratch the surface of what we did. Looking back now there are so many stories that could be related, I would need to ensure that some of the stories were censored before I publishing!

I managed to obtain a dummy kitchen tap. Whilst having the outward appearance of a fully chromed tap, it was made of plastic. It also had a rubber suction cup hidden at the end. This I would stick on the end of my ticket machine as I went about my conducting duties. It was hard to stop laughing when passengers would give it a "double take". The older passengers were the best who fell for the , " It is our new drinks ticket machine".

On other occasions it would be stuck on the front bulkhead of the bus in front of the seat. You could guarantee it would not be very long before some passenger, having looked around to see if anyone was watching, tried to turn it on to see what came out.

Later when we moved onto the front loading buses we found that the most unruly passengers on the late night buses appeared to congregate at the rear of the buses. It is fair to say we took a little bit of abuse. After 3 such nights on one tour of duty, I had become a little tired of their behaviour. I arranged with my driver, as we came into city to  collect our final load of passengers from Corporation Street, that he would stop in Coleshill Street, outside the old Gaskill & Chambers building. Having no one on the bus, I went to the rear seats and using cellotape, I attached two stink bombs, very carefully to the seat supports. ( I hope the limitation of proceedings is up on this now)

On reaching town the passengers boarded, the usual crowd taking up the rear saloon seats. As we left the city I started issuing the tickets. As I reached the rearmost group the bantering commenced. Having given them their tickets, I tapped the stink bombs with my foot as I made my way back down the bus. Within a few seconds there was a roar and every one of the group got up and had to take other seats around the bus. Once split up, they caused no problems. Sadly the rear of the bus remained empty for most of that particular journey!

In the morning once a crew had booked on, there was usually time to go for a cup of tea in the canteen. Here half asleep conductors were very vulnerable. Upon booking on duty conductors were given 5 shillings change (25p) to start their duty.

This you placed into your satchel. The tricksters would often, when the conductor was not looking, empty a small amount of tea into the bag. This caused the coins to stick together, and make change delivery very slow. Often this predicament was not noticed until the first passengers had boarded the bus and needed change. It also left a black sticky residue from the inner sides of the bag on your hands.

I loved to see snow, until I worked on the buses. Some of you may remember that the winter of 1962 was rather cold with a good amount of snow. Still working on the open back buses, my hate of snow was borne out of passengers boarding the bus and immediately stamping their snow covered boots all over the platform. Before long this became a frozen ice rink, making my every step a potential slip off the bus.

Shortly after this we received the new front loading buses. They even had heating inside, though you often did not notice. It also meant that you could talk to your driver, though this in itself was not supposed to happen.

When I reached my 21' birthday, I was automatically offered the chance to become a driver, which I grabbed with both hands. They taught me to drive, which up to that time I had never attempted.

The first time they took me out it was on one of the dual control buses with one of the instructors sitting behind you. Moving onto normal buses I passed my test in November 1963. I had to wait until early January 1964 when I then took my Public Service Vehicle test (PSV). This being an even longer and harder test than the first one. Luckily I passed and became Driver DD 46859.

It is a point of interest, that until my present licence runs out in a few years time, I have never had to pay for a licence! The job that I was doing has always provided the licence.

Eventually I would again be put on the Shard End rota. Over the next few years I would enjoy myself just going to work.

I mentioned earlier that I had never driven any vehicle other than a bus. After I had been driving for about 6 months I decided to buy my first car. It was a maroon Ford Cortina, I still remember the number 815 HOF.

Having just bought the car I was driving it along Washwood Heath Road. (I should mention here that in those days, bus stops usually had blue plates identifying that it was a bus stop.) In certain places, usually gradients, the down side of the road would have a red plate. At these red plate stops, buses had to stop, irrespective if there was any one to get on or off the bus.

One such red plate was positioned in Washwood Heath Road near to Arley Road. It was the last stop before Saltley Gate. I suppose I must have forgotten that I was in a car, because as I reached the stop, I stopped. I can still remember the look on the faces of the 2 people who were stood there waiting for the next bus. Red faced I drove home!

It was always nice to know where the route Inspectors were at any one time. In order to achieve this a "wire" system had been developed between the drivers. (It was also used by the conductors off the back of the old open backed buses, but the arrival of front loaders saw that practice end.

The system was simple but very effective. If the Inspector was on your bus, as the driver passed a bus coming in the opposite direction, he would tap his steering wheel in a rather obvious manner. The other bus carrying on its journey would identify to following buses that the Inspector was on the 1, 2, 3 etc bus in front by signalling with his fingers. Thereby ensuring that the buses would not run early and that the conductor made sure all passengers had their tickets.

Other signals included making a circle of the steering wheel with your hand together with the appropriate number of fingers, this indicating that the Inspector was at one of the traffic islands ahead. The easiest one to give was if the Inspector was at the terminus. This was signalled by the hand giving an imaginary key turning signal. This was meant to signify the Bundy clock which was usually situated at the outer terminus.

It will suffice to say that many signs were used and whilst Inspectors did take actions to thwart the drivers knowing where they were, the practice was usually of value.

In 1967 I got married and moved away from my Satley address and went to live in Chasetown. It was the first time that I had lived in a house that had hot running water. It made a nice change from having to to boil a kettle of water to bath in my old George Arthur Road house!.

Around this time I applied for and obtained promotion to Inspector. I understand that at 25, I was one of the youngest Inspectors, Birmingham City Transport ever had at that time. I was posted to the largest garage in the city at Perry Barr.

There was however a twist that nearly saw me demoted before I was even promoted. In the week leading up to my move to Perry Barr, one warm sunny morning, just after 9am, I was returning to garage from the city centre in the bus, which was now empty, having unloaded in Corporation Street.

On reaching a traffic Island , which at that time was at Gosta Green at the junction with Woodcock Street, both myself and my conductor, a good friend called Mark, saw that some of the female students from Aston University, were lying in the sun on the grassy part of the island. So that we could get a better look, I drove slowly around the island, very safely, I must add, twice.

It will suffice to say a conductor off another bus, reported me. When I attended Head Office, which was in Congreve Street a few days later ( known as up the bunk), I was told in no certain terms that they expected better. My promotion would stand. As I was leaving, the personnel manager added, "at least you should now know when someone else is doing wrong". And so The following Monday, thinking that I looked the bees knees, I turned up at Perry Barr. Whilst I had been to the garage on a few occasions, the size of the place and the services that it ran, completely overawed me. I have to say I started to wonder if I had done the right thing. I had worked at a small garage where everyone knew everyone else, here it seemed that no one had time for each other. I would find out in my time there, this was not the case.

In charge of the uniform side of the garage was the Divisional Operations Supervisor. (DOS) This was man called Harry Yarnold. I was already aware that he was an excellent boss, well liked by all. By the time I left Perry Barr, I agreed with the description. Harry sadly died a few years later.

My training began with a more experienced Inspector. This turned out to be a man called Paddy Faul. On seeing me he burst out laughing, I thought that it was because of the hat I was now required to wear and still felt very self conscious of. (I had never worn any type of headwear up to this time.)

Pat quickly reminded me that a few months earlier, when he was the Inspector on duty in Union Street, he had caught me running 7 minutes early. Now I was expected to catch others.

Pat was a great bloke. a He eventually left the buses for an Ice Cream van before becoming a black cab driver rising to a senior position in their hierarchy.

Once training was over I commenced looking for drivers running early, conductors missing fares and even worse, using many methods of stealing cash.

If there was one job I really hated, especially on icy cold mornings, was replacing the tapes in the Bundy Clocks, that were usually situated at outer termini on most routes. I hope that you can remember them. I large clock with a large box underneath on a solid thick pillar. Usually green in colour

Every morning, the early Inspector would have to visit at least 2 or 3 clocks and remove that tapes from the previous day. These tapes showed the time drivers had "clocked" away from the terminus, using a key which left an imprint of a 4 digit code. Each driver of course, had their own key and code.

If taking the tapes out on cold mornings was bad enough, inserting the new one was murder with fingers that nearly stuck together.

Over the next 9 months, I worked the number, 5/7, 11, 33, 39, 40 and 90 routes and managed to find good cafes on them all.

One last funny story that I recall from the busman days, took place at the Midland Red Bus Station, at that time in Station Street at the rear of New Street Station. It would seem that a driver and his conductor decided to play a joke on the passengers who were already waiting on the bus for the crew to arrive. The driver, walked to his bus being assisted by his conductor. The driver sporting dark glasses and a white stick. The conductor helped the driver up into his cab. I understand that some of the passengers did not realise it was a joke and made very fast exits off the bus. Mind you many other road users thought bus drivers had bad eyesight anyway!

In short I had a great time I was out and about meeting people, genuinely enjoying my work. Then it started to go wrong!

I was informed by Harry, that one of the office inspectors, who took the conductors cash, worked out duty rotas and ran part the operational side of the garage, was about to retire and he was volunteering me to go into the office. It was not a point to discus, it was a given!

Over the next months I became familiar with all aspects of the office duties and whilst I did not find them difficult , I was not happy. I missed the freedom the outside duties had provided me with.

True I was enjoying the social life that the garage provided namely football, the garage being the largest, had a good side. I actually managed to get in the side and was part of a league winning team. I also played table tennis for both the garage and the Transport league team, but it still was not enough.

In the May of 1969 I realised that I would shortly be 27 years old and had still not followed my dream of being a Policeman. It was now or never.

It took some real discussions at home because I would be taking a considerable drop in money to join the police force, which at that time was not well paid. I got the support that I needed so off I went to join the Force. There, I would eventually work with a former Liverpool Street driver who had left the Transport after getting his bus stuck under the bridge in Watery Lane. Well actually he took most of the roof off. Luckily he was empty at the time! But that, as they say, is another story............