Encountering a middle-aged American tourist who had never used a bus in his life, former Omnibus Society national chairman HARRY BARKER was reminded of the importance of having the right information to demystify the whole business of where and when services run, how to pay a fare and where to get off
My wife and I were in one of the many cafés in the busy seaside town of North Berwick. At the next table was an apparently well-educated American in his late 40s or early 50s who had arrived from Colorado to play golf at some of the county’s world famous courses. Maybe Muirfield or North Berwick course itself, which is a qualifying course for The Open.
He was studying a local bus timetable. Dunbar-based Eve Coaches’ timetable covers all of its local subsidised services and it was spread out over the table. Out of the blue, he turned to us and asked if we knew anything about the local buses. He certainly asked the right person and I did not even have my Omnibus Society tie on.
Like many visiting Americans, he had decided not to hire a car, as he had never driven on the left of the road before, this being his first visit to the UK. He was on his own, so was relying totally on public transport.
He had used a …
