A Happening of old

[catgate]

Something that was said in a recent exchange between two Window Forum members reminded me of a happening many years ago. I found it so amusing that I thought it might be worth repeating the tale.

 

 

Bradford is situated in the "dead end" of a valley. Every way into ( or out of) Bradford, apart from one ( the route NNW to the Aire Valley) is down (or up) a hill. Tony and I were school mates and lived well out of Bradford to the SW. We had to catch a tram into the centre every school day, and then a trolley bus out along Manningham Lane (NNW) to school.

 

On the route into town there was a right turn at a cross roads controlled by traffic lights. This right turn was needed because the road ahead, although being the direct route into town, was extremely steep. Even steeper than the road that had already been descended. About 20 yds round this corner was what was called a "Board of Trade" stop. All trams were required to stop here, full or empty, whether there were passengers to pick up or not. It was something to do with testing the brakes. (It always struck me as "cart before the horse" because a set of traffic lights on a right angle turn had just been negotiate). After leaving the Board of Trade stop the track went straight on for something like 80 yds and then turned left and angled down into town on a more friendly gradient. Right. So much for the topography.

 

At the time of day that we travelled much of the population of Bradford was on the hoof and consequently there were the inevitable queues at tram stops. The right hand bend at the traffic lights was a favourite place for people to "hop on" without the queueing because the tram had to slow down to the pace of a geriatric snail to negotiate the corner, even if the lights were green.

This particular morning our clippy was old misery guts herself. It was early 1945 and most of the young men were in the services and all the older chaps were now drivers. We were situated upstairs out at the back leaning over the rails, as usual, and watching the world go, by when a strapping young chap jumped on as the tram went round the corner. We often saw him at that time and I assumed he was in some sort of "reserved" occupation, engineering at AVRO or some such.

 

Well old Doris did not like his jumping on (she liked nothing) and when the tram stopped, as it had to do, she told him to get off and let all these other people on who were in the queue. Of course he refused, claiming he had already boarded the tram before all these other people so why should he get off etc. Eventually Doris said that she would not let anyone get on the tram until he got off, which naturally resulted in murmurs of support for her from the queueing Bradfordians, (despite their general dislike of Doris). So eventually the chap got off, and everyone in the queue got on.

At this point silly old Doris leaned out, put her arm across the entire entry to stop him getting on and said to him, "Sorry, we're full up now, you'll have to wait for the next tram."

 

I should explain at this point that the signalling on the trams was by means of a long leather thong that ran from the conductors platform to the bell on the drivers platform at the front, and the "code" was:- one dong for STOP, two dongs for GO and three dongs for WE ARE NOW FULL DO NOT STOP UNTIL I TELL YOU TO.

 

So he said "We've all had enough of you, I'll show you what I am going to do with you."and just forced his way on to the platform, grabbed hold of her round the waist and lifted her off the platform onto the roadway. As he was leaving the platform he grabbed the leather thong and went DONG DONG DONG on the bell. He held her firmly in place until the tram started to move and then ran after it and jumped back on. Of course because the tram was full the driver was totally oblivious to all this and was just working to signals. Old misery guts was left there waving and shouting and looking like the sad old prat that she was. As the tram negotiated the left hand bend she realised she had a whistle. However, although we could just hear it, the driver could not and so we went none stop right down into the town centre leaving Doris to explain to someone, some where, some how, about her exciting adventure. I can not remember seeing her again after this.

 

[AlanHo]

Thank you Doris - you created a great little story told by the forum's Master Storyteller. 

[andsome]

Like it. My granddad was a tram driver