Day 3 Richmond to Sheffield

After a live telephone interview with Radio York, we had a very joyful bus ride to Northallerton. As we boarded the bus on the Market Square at Richmond, the driver was reading a piece about us in the Northern Echo. He welcomed us aboard as ‘his’ celebrities and as we proceeded and collected passengers he – now our friend Alan - introduced us to all of them by their first names. He pointed out sights on the way, kept up a banter of jokes and provided timetables for our future route. We had to sign a timetable for him to show to his mates. Everyone on the bus joined in the general jollity. A woman sitting next to me had been yesterday on a coach to Hadrians Wall with the Northallerton branch of the University of the Third Age and said she was inspired by us to do some long distance travelling on local buses. At Northerallerton, where we had fifteen minutes to wait for the next bus to Thirsk, Alan offered to take Manju to see the local hospital as he now knew she was a doctor. We declined this offer but two passengers overheard the conversation and said they were going to the hospital so he gave them a lift.

An uneventful journey to Thirsk, where we discovered that the timetable has changed and we had an hour and half to wait for a bus to York. The staff of the Tourist Office had seen us on the box so they treated us like royalty and bemoaned the limited bus service. We wandered round the market square (which would be delightful if it wasn’t full of cars), had coffee and finished the crossword. Then we caught our first locally owned bus run by John Smith of Thirsk. All the rest have been part of one of the big conglomerates like Arriva. We felt a bit like kids in a class when the driver asked all ‘the concessions’ to put their hands up. There were seven of us out of 13 passengers.

York was complicated. There seem to be at least three bus interchanges. We were delivered at Exhibition Square, but only after our schoolteacher driver delivered a little lecture about being back by 5pm or we would have to walk home. We walked to the railway station but couldn’t find a bus to Selby. Eventually we found one at Piccadilly. On single decker buses we have started to sit in the back seats because there is more leg room. The problem with this policy is that this is where the kids sit. There were two young girls behaving a bit yobbishly - very loud competing music kit with no head sets, feet on seats, shouting out of the windows. I have recently acquired hearing aids and am still hearing more than I want to, particularly high pitched sounds. I couldn’t put up with this noise for 45 minutes so I pondered what to do. We could either move forward – a nuisance on a relatively crowded bus, I could ask the bus driver to shut them up since all buses have signs saying loud music e should not be played without ear phones, or I could address them directly. I decided on the latter. Very quietly and politely, I asked if they could turn down the sound as it was hurting my ears. They immediately turned off their instruments, apologised and sat demurely for the rest of their journey. Amazing.

At Selby we asked a guy in uniform about a bus to Doncaster. He recognized us and said a note had been sent round to all the drivers about our escapade – his word. Manju, who has now become an experience camerawoman (her work has already been broadcast on North West Tonight), asked if she could interview him. He took off his orange jacket, puffed up his chest and delivered a very interesting treatise on local bus services. We had twenty minutes to spare so took in the lovely Selby Abbey before boarding our bus.

As the bus left, a man in a suit – presumably the bus station manager – came over to shake our hands and wish us luck and told the driver to look after us. I made a phone call which a woman behind me overheard and realised who we were. She was ecstatic about us, our trip and our ‘courage’. She shook our hands and asked for autographs and talked for the rest of her journey about how we women deserve to do things like this. We spend all our lives working and looking after families and now we can have fun. She was going to use her pass to go all over north Yorkshire just travelling for the sake of it.

Great bus station and interchange with the railway at Doncaster and then on to Sheffield.

Since three journalists have now mentioned motorways to me I should explain that local buses never go on motorways although they quite often go over and under them. Only coaches and National Express use the motorways and our bus pass is not valid on these services. Local buses travel on other roads but rarely go directly from one place to the next. They take little diversions into villages or shopping centres, to institutions like prisons to collect visitors or schools to collect children. They provide a local service.

On every bus we have asked the driver how much the fare would be if we had to pay. So far, that is from Berwick to Sheffield, it would have cost £37 each. On the railway, a single standard open with senior railcard costs £37.30 but only takes three hours, not three days!