Bad stuff we did on buses as kids.

[High Dyke]

In 1973 the first Leyland nationals appeared on one of our regular buses to school, the route took it over a hump back bridge which set the air suspension bouncing and opened up the possibility of the 70+ kids taking control. So everyone crammed to the left, then to the right and got a real boat in a rough sea motion going. Some drivers just carried on regardless but on a least one occasion the rocking got so bad the driver pulled over and read the riot act.... Happy days!

Oddly enough I took the opportunity in the other direction. We drove a couple of routes where the road surface gave the bus a tendency to pitch. If the kids were being a bit rowdy I would accelerate and hit the the bump with some vigour. A few kids ended up on the floor many times, but they quietened down.

 

[Strathclyder]

One prank which backfired spectacularly happened twenty years ago in the run-up to Bonfire Night.

A youth saw a Lothian dual-door Trident sitting at the Silverknowes terminus and thought it would be a good idea to lob a firework through the open centre door. Unknown to him, the driver had used the staircase door to answer a call of nature with the help of a empty plastic bottle, saw what was going on and nipped upstairs.

Just as the youth was about to throw the firework, he got the contents of the now-full bottle emptied all over him from an upstairs window.

That is equal parts hilarious, cathartic and disgusting lol

 

[37114]

Oddly enough I took the opportunity in the other direction. We drove a couple of routes where the road surface gave the bus a tendency to pitch. If the kids were being a bit rowdy I would accelerate and hit the the bump with some vigour. A few kids ended up on the floor many times, but they quietened down.

When I was at school Bakers Dolphin had some old Bristol VRs which they used to ferry us from the centre of Bristol up to the games field at Henleaze. At the top of Jacobs Wells Road the kids on the too deck decided to get the bus rocking but forgot that the driver that day was one notorious for taking no messing. Within seconds the bus stopped and he shot up the stairs booming at the kids that the next one to get up from their seat would be made to walk....

 

[Paul Jones 88]

I can recall two occasions on the 279 in North London. Firstly I was 13 sitting upstairs at the back, smoking a cigarette - it was allowed back then. When the conductor came to sell me a ticket, I asked for half to Waltham Cross and he said 'put the bloody fag out or I'll charge you an adult fare.

The other occasion was me again sitting at the back, upstairs when I noticed a kid from school sitting about five rows in front. I threw an empty coke can at his head, however, I missed him and got a very grand looking man reading the Times instead, he called me a little sod.

 

[Falcon1200]

To answer the question, the naughtiest thing I've done on a bus is probably hit the seats to release dust on one of the coaches we used to have to take us swimming at first school about 10 years ago...

Same here, albeit in my case more like 50 years ago ! We created enough dust from the seats to pretend it was smoke and shouted 'Fire !'.... The driver and the teacher just ignored us however.

 

[01d-and]

Sat upstairs on double deckers and at the front , on odd occasions , access to the front display blinds could be made and destinations etc could be "adjusted".

 

[trebor79]

Some friends of mine went camping for a weekend, and took a large bucket with clip-on lid to act as a toilet. For unknown reasons they decided to return home with said bucket still full. One of them decided it would be really good fun to unclip the lid, then leave the bucket on the floor at the back of the bus when they got off.
I should imagine things got pretty unpleasant when the buss negotiated the next roundabout...

 

[Lukeo2311]

When I was still living in the UK, myself and a couple of mates hid inbetwwen the seats to "go around" at the terminus as the driver did the same route going back toward home after a quick break. I did it a couple of times alone and I got to know the regular driver on the route and he let me do it provided I let him know when I boarded, luckily I used a Arriva weekly pass so no need to pay fares twice! Sadly the route I used is no longer running (465 (64A to the older generation) New Ferry (Bebington Road) to Birkenhead Woodside). When I moved to Australia, I had a set of 2 way radios and I was able to pick up on the frequency used by the buses and myself and a friend used to call buses on the radio calling drivers rude names (not horrible one, just enough to annoy them) and get them to honk as they went past my school (some did but most of them told us to shut up and get off the radio or they will find us)

 

[Deerfold]

Kids will always be kids, there's no point in trying to differentiate the generations. What I would say has changed is that, as a generalisation, the kids of a few decades ago in the main either respected or were at least afraid of 'authority' figures, so the things that were done tended to be when no adult was in sight. Parents were also far stricter on the whole, and if you were caught doing something boisterous and anti-social you might get just as much grief from your parents.

I cannot imagine the situation then where, for instance, a child of six or seven would be allowed to so annoy a collection of bus passengers that an older woman of West Indian extraction amongst them remonstrated with it in moderation verbally, whereupon the child's mother, blissfully unconcerned up to then, started shouting at the older woman that she had no right to interfere or speak to her spoiled brat in any way, and demanded the bus stop and the police be called, which duly happened. I can honestly say that would NEVER have happened when I was growing up, and being from S.E. London I didn't grow up in a rarefied atmosphere: I was terrified of teddy boys when aged ten or eleven, and my community had plenty of them.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise"

(Socrates, 2645 years ago)

 

[Busaholic]

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise"

(Socrates, 2645 years ago)

Which bus route did he travel on?

 

[Welshman]

Mild, compared with some of the antics above, but one of our favourite tricks concerned boarding the bus. The conductor would stand on the platform at the entrance to the stairwell, in order to keep out of the way of people going upstairs or into the saloon, with ultimate ticket machine hanging down from his/her neck.
As we passed by, we would push a random lever down. hence issuing a ticket, but not tear it off. He/she usually stood there, looking absolutely bored, so had no idea who'd been fiddling with the machine, and upon giving the two bells to start, found he/she'd inadvertently issued several tickets, which, unless they wanted to pay for at the end of the day, they had to retrieve by opening the back of their machine and pulling them back through, and presumably making a note of on their waybill. All good fun.

 

[Ken H]

One I have just remembered wasn't so bad. But when Leeds wanted double decker pay as you enter buses, General manager Thomas lord designed a new bus body to be made by Roe to put on Atlantean or Fleetline chassis
They had 2 doors, periscopes to see upstairs, a PA system and a device on the stairs to count passengers up and down to drive a display of free seats upstairs. This operated by 2 stairs having pressure pads.
Of course kids knew they could spoil the logic by using the 2 stairs in the wrong order! you had to be agile tho!

 

[MotCO]

London Transport red buses never had school bus routes in the 1950s and 60s, or even schoolday journeys on their ordinary routes, and the conductor was usually supervising the boarding and unloading at stops: even the rear blinds couldn't be accessed by passengers, but (in theory) the side via blind incorporating the route number could be wound round by an interloper, though I never saw it happen. The most daring thing we dared do was to remove our hated school caps for the duration of the journey: I've loathed headgear ever since!

Not wearing a cap to and from school was a prefect detention at the school I was at!

 

[Busaholic]

Not wearing a cap to and from school was a prefect detention at the school I was at!

And mine! I was very proud of being the only one in my year, all ninety of us, to never get a personal detention, not by being a goody goody but by being cunning and devious. Why I never became a politician I do not know.

 

[TheSel]

It used to be almost a tradition that on the last day of the season of open topped Lodekkas at Rhyl, the upper deck of each vehicle became "home" to a couple of spotters armed with old Fairy Liquid* bottles filled with water - the aim of the 'game' being to drench those on the vehicles passing in the other direction. This, of course, could only occur if the conductor was downstairs at the time, or of a fairly liberal mind!

Picture below shows Crosville DLG946 - 928CFM - taken from the front seat upstrairs of another similar vehicle in the summer of 1979, between Abergele and Rhyl (my pic)



* - In the interests of equality and balance, it should be pointed out that other brands of washing up liquid were available and would produce the same effect!

 

[MotCO]

And mine! I was very proud of being the only one in my year, all ninety of us, to never get a personal detention, not by being a goody goody but by being cunning and devious. Why I never became a politician I do not know.

Did you by any chance wear a very distinctive two-coloured blazer?

 

[Busaholic]

Did you by any chance wear a very distinctive two-coloured blazer?

I doubt it's the one you're thinking of. I certainly wasn't the 'beneficiary' of private education. The blazer I had no particular objection to - my main objection to my schooling (or colleging, as they would have it) was its single sex nature, which is a crime against humanity in my opinion.

 

[GrimsbyPacer]

When I was a kid and teenager, I used to sit at the front left of a double decker bus if I could, as one time I sat there and looked down and saw everything down a woman's top. Didn't see a problem at the time, now I know it's creepy and objectifying, but when I was 12 it was all alien to me (never had friends or girlfriend or social skills, and only lived in places a short time).

 

[Welly]

I was at boarding school and the headmaster announced, during first assembly of term, that some boys had been gesticulating obscenely out of the back window of the school's own bus taking them to the railway station at the end of the previous term. The town's mayor was driving her car right behind the bus at the time (and knew exactly whose bus it was despite the lack of school name on the bus!) These boys got gated for the first week of term.

 

[ChilternTurbo]

Both myself and a friend were chucked off a London Buses Bristol LH after I'd opened the rear blind box to have nosey through the other route numbers on the blind. The driver shouted "Nobody touches those blinds" before escorting us off. I also was dared to change the rear three track blind of a London Country North West Olympian to something else and was able to spell 'SEX' much to our amusement. Sadly there's no fun to be had today with LED displays or London Smartblinds...

I don't use buses that often now but ended up on a bus at the end of the school day and I have to say my heart sank as we turned a corner and I saw a huge number of secondary school kids waiting at a stop. They were all very well behaved though and most seemed to be engrossed in their smartphones within in seconds of sitting down.

 

[MotCO]

I doubt it's the one you're thinking of. I certainly wasn't the 'beneficiary' of private education. The blazer I had no particular objection to - my main objection to my schooling (or colleging, as they would have it) was its single sex nature, which is a crime against humanity in my opinion.

I didn't have a private education either - the school I was referring to was in Kingston, Surrey.

 

[SteveHFC]

I've had a couple of trips on buses locally (Luton & Dunstable) during schoolkid travel times and have to say they've all generally been very well behaved. As others have said, they are usually engrossed in their phones.

Worst I did when I was a kid was pulling the emergency engine stop lever at the back of Leyland National whilst on my bike - the bus had overtaken me giving me very little room for error. At the next stop I stopped behind the bus, pulled the lever, ensured the engine stopped, and then cycled round the bus, said good morning to the driver as I past and continued on my paper round. I did know the driver, and he did admit that I'd won that one.

 

[theblackwatch]

Not the kids as such but more the driver - one of our regular drivers on the school bus (Pat) used to regularly do slalom down a long straight road for us on the way to my primary school.

 

[M60lad]

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but when buses used to have them turning the emergency handles on the outside of the bus so the driver couldn't close the doors and had to the leave the doors open.

Also what about sneaking on a bus via centre exit.

 

[Busaholic]

I didn't have a private education either - the school I was referring to was in Kingston, Surrey.

No, didn't go to school there. My school was in a more proletarian area, though it sought little connection with what went on outside its premises wherever possible, not an attitude I shared.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

When the ancient Leyland Titans (mentioned upthread) were eventually replaced with Leyland Atlanteans, the drivers of the latter invariably got well hacked off if a school bag was strategically placed on the top end of the periscope gizmo (this of course being a long time before the days of CCTV) so that they couldn't then see what was happening on the top deck.

 

[trebor79]

When the ancient Leyland Titans (mentioned upthread) were eventually replaced with Leyland Atlanteans, the drivers of the latter invariably got well hacked off if a school bag was strategically placed on the top end of the periscope gizmo (this of course being a long time before the days of CCTV) so that they couldn't then see what was happening on the top deck.

Yes, certain drivers would stop the bus and come upstairs to order it be removed.
I remember one of our drivers used to let his grandson, who was a pupil, change the gears using the little gear lever to the side of the steering wheel, and steer the bus.
It's a wonder we survived!

 

[Welshman]

Yes, certain drivers would stop the bus and come upstairs to order it be removed.
I remember one of our drivers used to let his grandson, who was a pupil, change the gears using the little gear lever to the side of the steering wheel, and steer the bus.
It's a wonder we survived!

This reminds me of reading somewhere in the past in the many memoirs of the late Geoffrey Hilditch, of the occasion when he had to reprimand a bus driver in those days between the introduction of Fleetlines and one-person operation, for encouraging his young attractive conductress to lean over the cab door and operate the little lever whilst he drove with his right hand on the wheel and his left outside the door, strategically supporting his young helper.

She was later reported as saying she had no idea that driving these new buses could be so hard.

 

[scosutsut]

The worst I ever did on a bus was carefully peel off recently applied SB Holdings no smoking stickers.

On a train it was much worse. Somewhat less sober than I'd recommend I went for a pee on a Class 320. Which doesn't sound too bad until I admit it was a good decade plus before they were fitted with toilets.

 

[Deerfold]

The worst I ever did on a bus was carefully peel off recently applied SB Holdings no smoking stickers.

On a train it was much worse. Somewhat less sober than I'd recommend I went for a pee on a Class 320. Which doesn't sound too bad until I admit it was a good decade plus before they were fitted with toilets.

Around 20 years ago, I was on the old W9 bus route which I caught after a night in the pub in Otley to get to Bradford for my train. Somewhere around Menston two teenage girls got on.

10 minutes later I wondered what they were doing bobbing down behind the back seats. Until the trickles of "water" started running down the bus.