Red double decker London bus with no doors. Note the pole to grab onto while climbing onto the bus. The handrail of the stairs can be seen through the back window. Detail from a screenshot of an old film.
Edgware, where I lived in the 1940s and early 50s, was part of the London Transport area. So all the buses were red. Most were double-deckers, but the 240 bus, which went between Edgware and Mill Hill East - and was the bus that I took to my second school - was a red single-decker because it had to pass under a low bridge.
Entrance to a red double-decker bus, showing the grab pole, the container for used tickets and the stairs to the top deck. Photographed at the London Transport Museum. (The no-entry sign placed by the museum has been digitally removed to represent the original appearance.) Hover for a larger version.
The double-decker buses had no doors, just an open platform with a vertical pole to hold onto while climbing aboard. The platform led directly to the stairs to the upper-deck and to the seats on the lower-deck. Under the stairs was a space for passengers' luggage.
Having no closing doors and being unheated, the buses were effectively open to the outside, letting in the cold and the fog - although they were an improvement from the buses with no roofs in my mother's childhood in the early 1900s. In the very cold winter of 1947, the condensation iced up the windows and icicles grew from the ceilings. Some were 6-8 inches long. I don't know whether any ever broke off, but if so it would have been perilous for anyone sitting underneath. As it was, tall passengers had to duck as they moved to a seat.
I understand that the famous Routemaster buses were developed in the 1950s, but they did not come to where I lived until 1960 or 1961. It took the drivers a while to get used to the automatic transmission - or the transmission had not been tuned properly - and the journeys were packed with serious jolts as the engines changed gear. We passengers were repeatedly thrown violently all over the place. It couldn't be allowed to continue and fortunately it didn't for long.
Every bus had a driver and a conductor. The driver was set apart in his own front cubicle, separated by a glass window from everyone else, and the conductor sold the bus tickets inside the bus. The conductor also monitored safety and gave the driver a double ding on the bell when it was safe to start again after a stop.
Most of my memories are of the drivers and conductors being men, but during the war (ie until I was 5 years old) they were mainly women because the men were away in the army, navy or air force. Women conductors were known as 'clippies'.
The 1940s and 1950s are also written as the 1940's and 1950's.
MORE ON TRAVEL IN 1940s AND 1950s BRITAIN:
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the London Underground
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overland trains
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buses
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cars
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