CORNISH BUS DRIVERS BEND IT BETTER THAN BECKHAM
(The Bus Drivers (not Pirates) of Penzance, by Gray Lightfoot)
Forget that urban centipede, the bendy bus. Cornish bus drivers bend it better than Beckham as they pilot their boats of the bitumen through narrow village streets and along the county’s granite-jawed rural roads and lanes.
We take our bus drivers for granted although our lives, comfort, and travel plans are in their hands. Communication between driver and passenger is minimal and is bookended between boarding and alighting. Now, a book of the bus, The Bus Drivers (not Pirates) of Penzance, fills that space. It is authored by the recently retired from many years as a Cornwall bus driver, the accomplished poet, performer, and author, Gray Lightfoot, well known on the poetry and literary events circuit across Cornwall and a regular performer at Bob Devereux’s famous summer sessions in St. Ives’ Norway Square.
GENUINE CORNISHNESS
Although Gray Lightfoot was mainly brought up in the north of England until a permanent move to Penzance with his wife Wendy in 2006, he never fails to promote a genuine Cornishness that is founded on his father’s family roots near Looe. That deep-seated Cornishness illuminates his writing as he makes up for non-domiciled years outside the county. His poetry and prose are imbued with West Cornwall especially and those always entertaining Lightfoot words are a verbal merging of travelogue and guidebook to the Western Land. Who better to know hamlet and highway, town and country than a bus driver, the human Sat-Nav with soul.
The reader of Lightfoot’s book learns about the bus driver’s often strict rules of conduct, the stress of navigating what Lightfoot calls a ‘huge greenhouse’ on wheels’. A double decker packed with travellers can weigh up to 18 tons, a responsibility few of us would ever wish to have. Add on the critical judgement required in ‘squeezing a bus like toothpaste through gaps…with just a fag paper’s width either side’ and the multiple other challenges that bus drivers exercise not least in face to face meetings with another bus, lorry, tractor or with tourists in ‘Off Road’ guzzlers who lack the essential skill of reversing on narrow Cornish roads.
JOUSTING LANES
Two of Penwith’s nightmare jousting lanes for bus drivers, especially with the summertime ‘Open-Top’, are the stretch of the B3283 between St Buryan and the Porthcurno turn-off, and the long narrow channel with blind corner finale between Morvah and Trevowhan on the north coast section of the B3306. Local residents have the same problem although reasonable timing may avoid the bus bump. Come summer, however the oncoming centipede crawl of increasingly massive SUVs is the ultimate nightmare for bus driver and local alike. Drivers of Chelsea Tractors stick to the middle of an already narrow road where there are few if no lay-bys for a bus or local driver to back into as they mouth obscenities through fixed smiles while the petrified holidaymaker crawls past without acknowledgement,
There is so much in The Bus Drivers (not Pirates) of Penzance to both entertain and gently instruct the rest of us that you come away with a chuckle and a new outlook on bus driving and even with a slight sense of guilt at previous underestimates of a bus driver’s stressful job. Comic anecdotes about interchanges between drivers and difficult or eccentric passengers smooth the book along. The distinctive behaviour of elderly passengers and schoolchildren, plus that sub culture of grumpy, selfish or downright miserable passengers plus the public’s often complete misunderstanding of a bus driver’s strict timetables.
WORDS FOR A WALK
Gray Lightfoot is a man who can take words for a walk (or a bus trip in his case) and bring them back as lyric poetry, comic verse or eminently readable prose. There is an enduring undercurrent of empathy and understanding that runs through his work even when he is at his most sharp-witted and sometimes satirical best.
The Bus Drivers (not Pirates) of Penzance is a delight not only for its entertainment value but for its portrayal of a writer with a wry understanding of human nature. The book’s chapters are further enhanced with introductory excerpts from Gray Lightfoot’s impressive collection of poetry and verse.
Next time, you get on that bus do so with a friendly greeting and with respect for your driver. And preferably with a copy of The Bus Drivers (not Pirates) of Penzance under your arm.
The book priced £10.00 is available at The Edge of the World bookshop, Penzance, the shop at Geevor Tin Mine, The Mousehole Shop, The Cat and Mouse Gift Shop, Mousehole and from the author at graylightfoot@gmail.com with £2.00 postage. Also available on Amazon.
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