Alan Millar’s sideways view of the bus scene
Please send any stories, photos, (digital, prints or slides), cuttings and other information of off beat bus matters direct to: Buses, PO Box 14644, Leven, KY9 1WX Or e-mail: alan.millar@keypublishing.com
One the little weekly rituals that Mrs M and I follow is to turn to the You Say columns in the television guide in The Sunday Times to read the amateur reviewers’ sometimes damning judgment of recent programmes.
These frequently include “Routemaster Moments” when their enjoyment of a drama is compromised by the jarring appearance of something out of place or time. It seems to have started when someone spotted a Routemaster where and when it ought not to have been, but extends well beyond matters bus.
Lately, however, the You Sayers have been greatly exercised by a dramatic atrocity in the streets of Oxford. Perhaps because Covid precluded the use of the preserved City of Oxford vehicles used before, a recent episode of Endeavour featured interloping RML-type Routemasters from — and possibly filmed in — London with fictitious Oxford City Transport fleetnames. Worse still, the conductor’s ticket machine is a Gibson from London and his badge from the wrong traffic area.
