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8/7/2016 0 Comments

On the buses IV (continued)

The bus depot was right next door to the petrol station, where I worked. Bus drivers would nip in on their way to work, or during their breaks, to buy cigarettes and snacks. One of them told me about a new local bus service that was being set-up, called the ‘Foxcubs’. It consisted of a small fleet of mini-buses (individually, these were about half the size of a regular single-decker), which would run back and forth from Coalville town centre to the out-lying villages, at regular intervals: say, every 20-30 minutes. And they were looking for new drivers to work it.  I was interested. Bus driving had never appealed to me as a prospective occupation, but the idea of driving around an area with which I was very familiar, and did not involve travelling too far away, did appeal to me. I had a clean driving licence and a motorbike licence, which must have indicated something positive about my driving proficiency; so I thought why not? I picked up a job application form from the depot, and sent it off to Midland Red headquarters. Subsequently, I had to go for an interview at the Leicester city centre depot. It was an enormous, very busy place; drivers of all shapes and sizes - recognizable by their dark blue uniforms, and the little brown leather cases they carried – dashed, ant-like, here and there, as they simultaneously started and finished their shifts.
I had to take a couple of written aptitude tests; then I had the actual interview, which I don’t remember at all. Anyway, I got the job. Before I could start work, I had to undergo some training, and pass the PSV driving test. This took several weeks, and I got paid for doing it! I remember my trainer, Maurice, very well. He was a laid-back, elderly Afro-Caribbean gentleman, who had spent his life working on the buses. He had a rich purr of a laugh which emanated from his soul, and he immediately put me at ease. I was quite nervous about driving a much bigger vehicle than I’d been used to; moreover, I was daunted at the prospect of being responsible for the lives of people who would be my passengers…what if I had an accident, and killed them all! (Yeah, I’ve always tended to over-think things, and look on the dark-side. But, I suppose, it’s best to be prepared for such eventualities.) (btw: I needn’t have worried; this was not an eventuality in this particular case) … 

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    I recently completed an academic research project (MPhil) about working-class women’s autobiographies. Now I’m writing my own...

    To cut a long story short:

    My dad and both my grandads were coal miners. I was born in Coalville. I belong on this website. 
    I returned to education as a mature student: got a couple of A-levels, went to university; got a BA, an MA, a PhD, and an MPhil. It was not as easy as that. It was not as quick as that. But I did.
    I have spent most of my adult-life studying something. Generally something to do with English literature: mainly something to do with working-class women. My MA is about Women and God – inspired by and emotively written through my experiences as a pupil at Catholic primary and secondary schools. My PhD and MPhil projects are about working-class women writers – inspired and emotively written through my experiences as a working-class woman in a materialistic and class-ridden society. When I was an undergraduate at university, there wasn’t a module about working-class writing. There just wasn't. I didn’t study any working-class texts. I just didn’t. I once gave a research paper about my PhD (ie: talking about my work) and I remember someone laughingly said, ‘Was there a recession in the 1980s? I must have missed that.’ That just about sums it up.
    I have had no working-class peers. I found them in my reading and writing. In my reading and writing I found myself.

    Welcome to my blog.
    It's basically about me.It’s called ‘My Travel Blog’ (because I’m time travelling through my memories of the past). See what I did there?


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