Lifestyle

The good life

Tim Roberts says he doesn’t have a single contribution
to make to the human race but if he did he’d like it to be
a way to maintain the relaxation and joy of a holiday in
the midst of work and the daily grind. He still has a long
way to go and was recently taught a wonderful lesson by
elderly bus drivers on the precious sense of community

The attitudes in this part of New Zealand where I now
live are laid back, to say the least. I use the bus most
days to get to the train station. The bus drivers in this small coastal town are a chatty bunch who seem to be around or past the age of retirement, with one exception.

Several drivers are women in their mid-sixties who drive their buses with a finesse and precision that some of their own grandmothers may only have been allowed to demonstrate on the sewing machine or church organ. Thankfully, times have changed here in the first nation on earth to give women the vote.

All of the older drivers freely offer laughter to passengers and advice on politics, wineries, essential beach lifestyle questions and, of course, sport.

I guess that they are all, with one exception, driving buses after they have retired from their first careers. A few of the drivers are immigrants, I can detect accents from Europe and Asia, but there seems no difference in camaraderie.

The exception is a woman in her early thirties who is noticeably grumpy and reticent. It seems that she finds it difficult to smile at strangers, which is quite
unusual here. I have been wondering what the reason for this is.

Perhaps, when you have had a career and then retired and chosen to be a bus driver in a quiet town, that may be quite different to being a bus driver in the quiet town early in a career when all the media is telling us that the city is the place to live with juicier wages and more opportunities.

Maybe grumpiness is a mask that hides confusion and fear about the financial future. I think this is one of the tragedies of Western life.

I’m not suggesting that the other bus drivers are all ex-merchant bankers, and it’s dangerous to generalise, but the older ones have a very different attitude.

It could be the wisdom of age, it could be a good pension plan, or it may be that priorities change and that the present moment is to be enjoyed because we will probably have less of them than we would choose.

Bus protocol

Before I tell you about a recent bus event, I need to explain bus protocol here.

Whenever anyone gets onto the bus it is considered rude if you do not exchange pleasantries with the driver. When you exit the bus, either from the front or back doors, it is a social requirement to say thank you to the driver. The driver will then call back “mind how you go” or something similar.

Many children travel unaccompanied on buses here and they can be quiet young. Even young children shout “thank you” when they exit and the bus drivers
always shout back “mind how you go”. It is a joy to behold.

People talk to each other, are quick to make jokes and will talk to the driver from any position in the bus at any time.

If the bus driver needs a newspaper, a coffee or the loo then he or she pulls over if it’s quiet and gets a paper, a take-out coffee or spends a penny. No one minds. Bus drivers are important and liked here.

All buses have radios similar to the old unencrypted personal radios I used to use in the police.

Recently, I was on my way to what I considered an important business meeting in the city. I caught the bus as usual and it is only a short ride to the train station. Train timetables here are rough guides, rather like they seem to be in the UK.

The big difference is that no one here pretends any differently, and they certainly don’t experience the neurosis that surrounds late train arrivals in Britain. It’s
not that they don’t care; they just have more important things to do, such as relishing their days.

The bus was taking the usual route to the train station and was, as usual, about half-full. Most passengers were business commuters or schoolchildren.

Cow search
As we rounded a bend in the road the radio crackled and another bus driver said: “We’ve got a missing cow up here. Anyone passing by?” Our bus driver grabbed the radio and offered to help. She swung the bus round and headed off the route and down smaller residential roads.

“Sorry folks,” said the driver,“another driver needs some help to find a lost cow. Sing out if you see it.” Several other bus drivers also answered and between them they conducted an area search for this cow.

Passengers were pressing their faces to the windows trying to locate the cow and all were talking to the bus driver, offering insights or just making jokes.

All except me. I was worried that I would miss the train and then miss my meeting. I was also thinking, when did finding missing domestic animals become the core business of the bus company? I had missed the point entirely.

The bus company had no core business with the cow. But there is still a sense of community here and the community cares if someone loses a cow or if a car hits the cow and causes injuries.

There are many immigrants in this town, especially British, American and South African. Perhaps one in five people here is from another country yet the
sense of community is strong enough to absorb newcomers.

After a few minutes we heard on the radio that the cow had been spotted and was now being taken back to the field by another bus driver and some of his
passengers.

Our bus driver seemed genuinely happy with this and
thanked us all for our patience. She then drove at an amazing speed to the train station.

There, sitting in the station was the train. By now it was several minutes late. I ran to the train and only as I did so I noticed something very odd. None of the other passengers quickened their pace.

The train conductors welcomed us all and as we took our seats the train passengers already in the carriage were relaxed and chatting, reading or dozing, as if everything was just dandy!

I guess that buses here hunt in packs, and they try hard to find good deeds to do. Drivers will often radio other drivers and tell them to wait for a passenger who is late and running towards the bus as it prepares to move off.

Somehow the message had got through to the train driver that there was a stray cow and the train driver had waited.

So, the lesson I learnt was that this sense of community is something precious, and something I have not experienced before and it is every bit as
important as the lifestyle, the job, the beach and the mountains

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