Denzil Oulton talks about working as a bus conductor [Text only]

Having worked in Fullwell Garage, London Transport, we got information that they were offering houses housing accommodation in the new town called Stevenage.  Another colleague of mine had already gone to Hatfield and he said to me well what about it?  So I made the application as usual and it was a time when a number of large organisations were being offered accommodation by the Stevenage housing corporation to come to Stevenage, and London Transport was one of them so we took the offer up and came to look at the place, got the information, everything else. And was offered a place and came in 1966, directly from the London Transport to Stevenage Country Bus, so which was then a part of London Transport then anyhow. And that was the main reason for coming really, accommodation and the job.

My job was as a bus conductor.  When I first came here, we used to run, I’ve forgotten the numbers of the buses now, buses numbers change, but the main one was the, at the time the 601 and that ran as the number 4s and 5s run now.  Up the Six Hills Way and around the Valley Way, Shephall Way and around.  And the other one went the other way, the same as that one does now but it ways interesting how they did it.  As the buildings were going up they would extend the bus route into this newly developing area.  So you’ll see like at the moment you’ve got the buses running to what they would call the east, the northeast I would suppose, Number 2s and number 3s and they ran up to the Oval, Pin Green and the Oval and come around.  The other one goes the other way.

So as the housing neighbourhoods went up, then the bus would extend and I remember we used to run the 602s just up to Webb Rise at the time as far as it went through Pin Green,  The Green King Pub and up to Webb Rise and stop there and then after 18 months or something, extend it further on.  And the same further on at St Nicholas you would stop at the Cemetery in Grace Way they used to stop there, turn back, and come back to town and then after a time you extended up around the other areas we used to stop at, I think they still do now, the St Nicholas Pub, Pilgrims Way.