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Remembering Bob on the buses

So far as I know, Bob went with it. The tractor stayed at High Brooms until 1931 when Chris Lambert of Horsmonden bought it and converted it to a roller.

Work was scarce for engine drivers at that time and Bob took a job as a garage hand at Tunbridge Wells bus depot where the other garage hand was Phil Ashbee. They did all the odd driving jobs about the depot and both acquired PSV driving licences. In its early days in Tunbridge Wells the Maidstone & District concern brought in some of their Tilling Stevens vehicles to replace the rather tired Dennis and Albion buses inherited from the Redcar fleet. Bob and Phil Ashbee used to fill in alternately as drivers on the first daily journey on Route 101 Tonbridge to Leigh (where I lived), frequently with a conductor we knew as ‘Snowball’ – I forget his real name. Bob tended to be a bit fierce on the clutch. One morning on the outward journey he put the bus as he thought into bottom gear to move off from Tonbridge Post Office. Snowball had braced himself for the customary sharp start but, sad to say, Bob had somehow lifted the rather worn latch and had selected reverse with the consequence that the bus gave a short sharp jump backwards until he stamped on the brake. Snowball was braced the wrong way and nearly went base over apex. There was a slight coolness between them that day!

Bob and Phil were, however, great characters and my brother and I learned a lot about engines and buses from them.

Bob Whitehead
Tonbridge, Kent