THE red double-decker bus is as much a symbol of London as Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus and Phil Mitchell eating a pie, which is why it seems so wrong that soon they'll be no more. Not that long ago, nearly every British film with an eye on the interna
tional market began with a shot of one of these buses in a charmingly cack-handed attempt to establish where the action was based. Nowadays directors just show the Gherkin and the London Eye, which doesn't seem quite so satisfying somehow.
Showing as part of a season of films devoted to London Transport, Arena – Little Platform, Big Stage paid valedictory tribute to the Routemaster bus and its conductors. Part social history, part personal remembrance, the problem with this otherwise good-natured film was that the five conductors featured didn't really have much of interest to impart.
In an attempt to chart shifting societal mores, each representative was plucked from a different decade, from the 1950s – when the Routemaster was introduced – onwards. Ruel represented the influx of West Indian immigrants who, courtesy of a recruiting centre in Barbados, were encouraged to work for London Transport. He was initially alarmed, not only by Britain's inhospitable weather, but also by the rudeness of many of his customers, not to mention the virulent racism he often came up against. But it wasn't all bad: if Ruel's recollections are anything to go by, then life as a conductor on the Routemasters was more akin to the bawdy antics of On The Buses than I previously realised. He seemed to use the buses as his own mobile dating agency, and devised various crafty methods of attracting the attention of potential paramours.
He wasn't alone in this. As a wide-eyed 18-year-old conductor, Andrew met and fell in love with his driver, Frank. Although they didn't shout about it from the roof-tops, their relationship was hardly a secret among their colleagues, and yet according to Andrew they never received any abuse. So much for ingrained 1970s prejudices. The relationship wasn't to last however. Andrew realised it was over after engaging in "a sexual act" with a businessman on the top deck of a bus which was otherwise deserted save for an oblivious pensioner. Charming.
They all spoke of the sense of community engendered by life on the buses, and the way in which they often acted as friendly confidantes for regular passengers. They made the good old days sound like a kind of utopian idyll. Apart, of course, from the tide of customer violence which increasingly swept the aisles, seemingly from the 1970s onwards.
This patchy film closed with a defiant eulogy from London's singing bus driver, Baysee Rowe, who spent years entertaining customers with his song and dance routines. I can't imagine anything I'd like less than a relentlessly ebullient "character" blowing his harmonica in my face on the way to work each day, but then maybe that's just me.
There was more social history in Comedy Connections: Till Death Us Do Part, which charted the tumultuous saga behind this classic sitcom. Co-stars Warren Mitchell and Tony Booth loathed each other as much as their onscreen counterparts, while writer Johnny Speight's heavy drinking became an increasing problem for the production team. Mitchell – who looks exactly the same as he did in 1966 – once again informed us that Alf Garnett was a parody rather than a celebration of bigotry. Yes Warren, we know.
The full article contains 606 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
