I used to wait for bus to go into the center of Belfast , or downtown as we would say back in the day before the new bus tokens were introduced .
I would jump on the bus with a fare and went upstairs for a higher view of the journey hoping to get an empty seat . Sitting on the upstairs seats always gave me a beautiful view of all the wee streets and things you didn’t usually see if you walked .
The houses that I saw looked old and mysterious , almost like a cluster of little huts in no man’s land where you would never dare to enter .
I started smoking very early in my life then and it didn’t cost me a penny for the experience as everyone else on the bus smoked . So you see there was more than enough cigarette smoke for is all to share and enjoy on the way down town ..
That’s the way it was then .
The bus conductor collected the fares and he printed you out a ticket from his bus ticket machine that hung from his neck by a strap . It looked like a very complicated device and it was always amazed me how fast he could do it .
There was a string above your head that could pull that rang the bell so the driver knew you wanted to get off the bus at the next stop .
Sometimes there would be unscheduled stops if the driver or the conductor wanted to put on a bet at the bookies shop .
There was no radio on the bus which allowed people the chance to sing if they felt like it but most people just talked away as the bus made its way up into or back from the centre of town . I would visit St Patricks in Lower Donegal street and then cut through to Smithfield Market .Loved Patrick Kavanaghs shop because I collected old coins and he always had so many interesting coins in the window .
When you walked around down town the air was cleared because everybody who walked around the city centre was the same religion back then . We kind of bluffed each other in thinking that we were all safe and no one ever bothered to challenged you . Sometimes you felt like shouting out .
“Alleluia the gates of heaven are open to us all no matter where we come from .”
The double decker buses never broke down , thank God so we always got where we had to go on the bus .
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