‘Throw the snowball through the door; go on, get the driver Knolly’
Steamed up windows, no place to sit.
‘Posh lads from Poppleton, fuck off’
Engine off; driver fed up; ‘behave you lot’.
Run from school; time for a quarter of Cola Cubes; get on the top deck.
Chuddy on the seats, clothes stink of fags (‘buy ’em in singles for 5p).
The push to get on, sweaty bodies, falling rain; ‘bus is full’.
Get the bus at twenty to eight; travel round the village to get the best seats;
Who is the lady with lipstick who stinks of Bensons?
Grab the leaves through the top deck windows;
Chuck snow down the driver’s seeing tube (to police those on top).
With the big boys: my neighbour Rick, Nick Woods and Paul Cartwright (‘Carty’s Curtains’ – his flares).
Run across Blossom Street, Skarky Green, Nunthorpe Avenue.
Cold after football, cross country, get the 143 (one hour later), single deck – so much worse.
Long Live The School Special (‘Speggy’ in York). A place to learn, to meet, to smell, to hear, to see, a place to look at those girls who went to Mill Mount.
