Suggs and the City: Journeys Through Disappearing London by Suggs

Author:Suggs [Suggs]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2009-09-16T23:00:00+00:00

It must have been quite a sight and smell, but sadly, unlike the stable yards in Camden, no traces remain of this major depot and the best guess is that it is now probably the site of a trading estate, home to architects, caterers and couriers (the last is, I suppose, at least related to getting something from A to B).

However, one of the ideas pioneered by those early omnibus owners has survived. They wanted to make it easy for the paying public, many of whom were illiterate, to identify the route of the bus. Eventually, they fixed on numbers as the best way of doing it, but before that they used a colour-coding system, keeping the sides of the omnibuses clear for adverts but painting the route colour on the carriage. For example, if you were travelling with the General Omnibus Company between Putney and Liverpool Street, you’d be on the white line. If you were travelling out of Victoria northwards, you’d use the ‘royal blues’. As Gordon says, ‘The wheels of a car are a means of its identification. By the colour of the body you tell the line the vehicle travels; by the colour of the wheels you tell the company to which it belongs.’ This brilliantly simple idea of using colours to show the route a bus was taking and its destination was ultimately copied by London Underground and showed off to beautiful effect in Harry Beck’s London Underground map.

Those old horse-drawn double-deckers also have a direct descendant which itself has almost disappeared completely from London’s streets, and that’s the old Routemaster bus, which was designed for London Transport. I say ‘almost’ because the number 9 from the Royal Albert Hall to the Aldwych and the number 15 from Trafalgar Square to Tower Hill were reprieved as ‘heritage routes’, and you can still hire others for private events. The Routemaster, in particular route 29 (Wood Green to Trafalgar Square via Camden), played an important part in the early life of Madness. It was how we got to rehearsals and how we got around London. It gave us a perspective on the city, and what we saw from the top deck of that bus, and others, then featured in our songs.

These old-style buses had other glories too. I’m sure it was not only me and my friends who enjoyed the occasional ride without a fare on these old wagons. ‘Get on a red bus and not pay the fare, get on the red bus and go anywhere,’ as I sang in ‘Somewhere in London’.

The other delight I associate with the old Routemaster is cigarette smoke, because there was a time when smoking in a public place was not a crime but rather a sign of a convivial atmosphere. When I couldn’t afford my own fags, an added pleasure of the bus ride was to go to the top deck - the smoking saloon - and just inhale other people’s smoke. And when I did have the cash

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