City Bus Driver

What do a bunch of bus drivers do on their day off? They go for a 250-mile blast through the Scottish Highlands on motorcycles, and spend the entire day proving you can take the driver out of the bus, but you'll never take the bus driver out of the rider. People often assume that after spending all week behind the wheel of a bus, the last thing a bus driver wants to do on a day off is drive. They're only half right. It isn't the roads we're sick of... It's the buses. Swap forty feet of double-decker for two wheels, throw in a handful of fellow bus drivers, some of Scotland's finest roads and enough banter to fill a depot canteen, and you've got the recipe for a cracking day out. The plan was simple enough: meet at McDonald's in South Queensferry before heading north for a run to Braemar. Simple... Unless you're a numpty. Despite spending my working life getting people to the right destination, I somehow managed to turn up at the McDonald's in Ne...

Sometimes being a good bus driver isn't about what you do. It's about noticing what everyone else missed. A passenger says they're fine. Your instincts aren't quite convinced. So what do you do when something feels wrong, but isn't quite wrong enough to intervene? Sometimes nothing obvious has happened, but something doesn’t quite add up. Recognising the signs and simply asking, “Are you okay?” can be the most important action of all. There are plenty of things you expect to deal with on a bus. Late runners. People who wave at you from half a mile away. Someone insisting they definitely pressed the bell (they didn't). And, of course, the daily debate over whether the empty seat next to someone is actually occupied by an invisible friend. Then there are the moments that aren't in the timetable. Recently, I was doing a driver change when I noticed a bloke sitting at the back of the lower deck chatting away to a lone female passenger. He appeared to be under th...

A routine shift took an unexpected turn, not because of what I saw, but because of what I smelled. Then came the black butterflies drifting across the windscreen. Except they weren't butterflies at all. Every city has two faces. There's the one we know. Busy streets. Coffee cups in hurried hands. The rhythm of traffic. The familiar dance of buses, pedestrians and cyclists, each weaving around the other in a choreography repeated thousands of times a day. Then there's the other face. The one that only appears when something extraordinary happens. My day began like any other. There was nothing to suggest that, somewhere nearby, a building was fighting for its life. The first clue wasn't flashing blue lights or a road closure. It was the smell. Not the comforting scent of a wood fire, nor the faint aroma of traffic baking on warm tarmac. This was heavier. Damp smoke. Wet ash. Burnt timber soaked by thousands of gallons of water. A smell that settled in the air and lingered...

Some passengers board a bus. Others adopt it. One of my regulars has convinced me they're not entirely human, but rather a highly evolved house cat in a jacket. Some punters operate on an entirely different level. Take one of my regulars. Lovely soul. Polite. Quiet. Never any bother. But I'm increasingly convinced they're actually a domesticated cat. Every morning they climb aboard, tap on with the same gentle routine and offer a soft, almost musical, "Thank you, driver." Now, maybe it's the early starts. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe years of inhaling diesel fumes have finally loosened a few screws. But I swear they're purring. Not loudly, mind. Nothing obvious. Just the faintest suggestion of a contented little rumble as they shuffle past the cab. "Mrrrp." Classic cat behaviour. They always sit downstairs. Always. Yet they never sit in the same seat twice. No, no. That would be far too straightforward. First comes the inspection. Like some fel...

The summer heat has arrived, and with it comes strange sights. Driving through the city exposes you to humanity at its best, worst, and occasionally flattest. Today, I witnessed what may well be the first official casualty of Edinburgh's latest heat wave. The summer heat has finally landed in Edinburgh, and as every bus driver knows, once the temperature climbs above "pleasant", the city starts behaving differently. Driving in the city exposes you to all sorts. Tempers shorten. Shirts disappear. Folk suddenly decide that crossing the road without looking is an acceptable life choice because, apparently, heatstroke doubles as a traffic management strategy. Today, however, I witnessed what I can only describe as the first casualty of the recent heat wave. As I approached one of the city's many bus stops that have mysteriously evolved into unofficial loading bays, I spotted a familiar sight: a delivery lorry parked squarely in the stop while its driver carried out a drop...

Some passengers get on, pay their fare and sit down. Others treat the bus like they're viewing a flat to rent. This gentleman managed to turn a five-minute journey into a full-scale investigation into the climate of public transport. We've had one of those strange hot spells in Edinburgh where the entire city loses its mind. The folk who spend eleven months of the year complaining about the cold suddenly discover they're allergic to sunshine. Every second person is carrying a fan, every supermarket has sold out of ice lollies, and every bus driver has developed the complexion of a boiled lobster. Into this tropical paradise steps today's star attraction. The doors open and on he comes, dressed as if he was heading to a hill walk in the Cairngorms in February. Heavy jacket. Thick trousers. The sort of outfit that says, "I don't trust the weather, even in August." He looks at me and says, "Can you wait five seconds while I go upstairs and see how hot it...

Four former wedding photographers, one Edinburgh heatwave, and enough old stories to fill a photo album. What started as casual drinks on George Street became an afternoon of laughter, nostalgia, alfresco dining, and rediscovering the city through fresh eyes. Sometimes the best memories arrive quietly, over Guinness, cocktails, and Edinburgh architecture glowing in the sun. There’s something oddly restorative about seeing your city through the eyes of friends who don’t get into town nearly as often as they’d like. The moment they stepped onto George Street, the usual comments returned almost instantly, how grand Edinburgh feels, how every second building looks like it belongs on a postcard, and how even an ordinary wander between bars somehow turns into an accidental architecture tour. As locals, you forget that sometimes. You spend so much time navigating the city around shift patterns, traffic lights, diversions, and roadworks that you stop properly looking at it. But yesterday felt ...