Holding Sway

It’s so much more fun than “Town Service”, “Duplicate” or just BLANK.

Was it Hants & Dorset’s 15 that showed “Burley” as its outer terminus or was it the 109s showing “Sway”? Somehow, the strange words on a bus’ destination would always hold a fascination – even if no one else shared the joke.

Take the bus with “Sway” on its front. Would it vacillate, would the driver be tempted to weave from side to side? Or would its passengers oscillate to some hidden rhythm of the gearbox’s whine?

How should the bus travelling on H&D’s 116 advance? Presumably as if on “Tiptoe”. And buses on Tyne & Wear’s 12 – to “Walker”? Or United’s 62 to “Travellers Rest”?

Doubtless the driver and passengers on Western National’s 72 to Looe would, after two hours’ travel, need a break. “Leek” on the front of Potteries’ vehicles might not seem that unusual until you marry the destination on the front with the advert of the side, for Marston’s Pedigree.

H&D’s 150 had “shorts” to “Lilliput”. Was Bournemouth Corporation’s 32 to Jumpers Corner suicide alley or a knitting convention?

What does one make of the 91 in London, to Crouch End? And grimy Bristol Omnibuses going to “Bath”? Plus Crosville’s from Chester to the village of “Mold”?

One of my favourites, though, was the SELNEC service 614, whose buses in a reference to a need for a fleet with airbags, displayed “New Springs” on the destination.

East Midlands used to show “Clowne” as a destination.

So far as we’re aware, there never was a bus terminating at “Nasty” in Hertfordshire or “Lost” in Cornwall. And as for the 109 “Sway” bus, one journey from New Milton turned short at “Wheel Inn” though I can’t now remember whether this was on the blind.