Getting to school...

[80sChav]

Re: Getting to school...

To Primary it was walking as only lived about a 100 yards or so (or 5 mins)

At Secondary - walking never happened at both places due to varying reasons etc, but I recall "nearing in on Year 9" and so wanting to walk in with mates/ven tough lads in on the fringes of me and my best friends circle, but again it never happened! Man I so dreamed of that lol ...... but I guess the only thing to say/add is "if only"!!

80sChav

[havasack]

Re: Getting to school...

5minute walk to infants and middle school. 20mins walk to high school that amazingly could sometimes become an hour or two as I got older.

Re: Getting to school...

the infant / junior school that i attended was about a ten minute walk from where i used to live. when i went to secondary school, that was a fifteen to twenty minute walk, depending on which route you took. on the odd occasion, i would get a lift off my dad or a uncle. sometimes on the way home my neighbour would wait for me and give me a lift home.

[Danniella]

Re: Getting to school...

I used to walk with my friends but we were the victims of a flasher so we started getting a bus, it was only a few mins on the bus but much safer than walking after what happened.

[George 1978]

Re: Getting to school...

I was more interested in getting away from school.

[Twocky61]

Re: Getting to school...

In the 70's when I was fourteen at a comprehensive school my parents dropped me off the six miles to school where my parents works at a company near-by

School finished 3-45pm but my parents finished work at 5pm so I hitch-hiked home

[George 1978]

Re: Getting to school...

I used to hate going to school, and I would do my best to stay in bed so I wouldn't go. If my mother had agreed to say that I was ill, the irony was that I felt better at the thought of not having to go to school and this brought such a relief to me.

Especially Comprehensive School, parents, the EWO, and teachers used to drag me to the prison. I remember being attacked on the way home while in Year 11, and I vowed never to go to that school again.

[zabadak]

Re: Getting to school...

What a good son you are repaying her for all the times she brought u too school.

Ha! Not since the very first week or so!

[darren]

Re: Getting to school...

What a good son you are repaying her for all the times she brought u too school.

when i was in 6th form college, my mum was a secretary there so i used to give her a lift! :d

[marc]

Re: Getting to school...

Liked the picture of the first bus marc

That bus, KNY 495D, was the last bus that was crewed by a driver and conductor to operate out of Porth depot. It languished there for some time after. The photo was taken at the Barry Transport Festival in 2014 or 2015.

The bottom photo of bus GSC 653X, I believe is an ex-Cardiff Bus. It is owned by Ralph Thomas Coaches. It is used on school contracts, around the Treorchy area. It is pictured at Blaenrhondda. It was starting the school run one morning. I took the photo myself. The bus I was driving, is immediately behind it. I was getting ready to operate the 120 Blaenrhondda - Caerphilly service.

[victorbrunswick]

Re: Getting to school...

I've done the stinking school bus to death in another thread, but I want to mention the second secondary school I went to in 1974.

This is gonna sound like the Monty Python Yorkshireman sketch a bit, but I had to walk 3 miles every day to my school in Thatcham, Berks. Yet again I knew nobody and nobody gave a ****, but I walked this in all weathers, usually in platform shoes.

My Father, who was the Head of a local Primary school, never gave me a lift. I asked nay, begged, for a bike or training shoes to aleast make the journey easier. I got neither. I must have had a coat ; a battered old Parka that always smelt like it had been slept in. It used to stink even more if I'd navigated the rain on the way! All weathers I did this for 2 years.

My brother repeated the feat (although not in platforms) 7 years later.

It sounds almost Dickensian.

[amethyst]

Re: Getting to school...

Liked the picture of the first bus marc

[zabadak]

Re: Getting to school...

When I was in 6th form college, my mum was a secretary there so I used to give her a lift!

[darren]

Re: Getting to school...

WOW THATS A BIT HARSH UR DAD NEVER GIVING YOU A LIFT IN TO SCHOOL OR EVEN GETTING U A BIKE AND OR TRAINERS..

FACT HE WAS THE HEAD OF THE LOCAL P[RIMARY SCHOOL MAKES IT WORSE.

I GUESS HE THOUGHT JUST CAUSE HE WAS THE HEAD DIDNT MEAN U DESERVED SPECIAL TREATMENT.

I've done the stinking school bus to death in another thread, but I want to mention the second secondary school I went to in 1974.

This is gonna sound like the Monty Python Yorkshireman sketch a bit, but I had to walk 3 miles every day to my school in Thatcham, Berks. Yet again I knew nobody and nobody gave a ****, but I walked this in all weathers, usually in platform shoes.

My Father, who was the Head of a local Primary school, never gave me a lift. I asked nay, begged, for a bike or training shoes to aleast make the journey easier. I got neither. I must have had a coat ; a battered old Parka that always smelt like it had been slept in. It used to stink even more if I'd navigated the rain on the way! All weathers I did this for 2 years.

My brother repeated the feat (although not in platforms) 7 years later.

[marc]

Re: Getting to school...

My infant and primary school was about a mile and a half from home. Evan in the infant school I would sometimes walk to school. It would take around twenty minutes. The walk was almost dead straight. My mother usually took me to school. When we caught a bus, the journey would take several minutes. These were the type of buses we usually caught:





The comprehensive school was a couple of minutes walk from home.

One memory of catching the bus to school was that if it was a designated school bus, some drivers would not pick us up. The reason was, that they were contracted to the comprehensive school. Some drivers would pick us up. This seemed odd. I found out the reason when I started to work on the buses has a driver. They could pick up pupils going to the comprehensive without a school pass, but they would have to pay. Has we were pupils not going to that school, we didn't need that bus. Ironically, the bus had to go past the comprehensive, up has far has the stop we needed to turn. Some drivers would stop, under the instruction of the conductor, and we would be charged the appropriate fare. The bus would take us around New Century Street in Trealaw to turn around. This passed my grandmother's house. We would sometimes see her looking out of the window. She would then wave to us.

There is a post script to this:
I started to work has a driver at Porth (Rhondda) depot in 2004. Some of the drivers had worked there when it was the Rhondda Transport Company. This ceased in 1971. They may have well taken me to school. The bus in the top photo, I probably travelled in to school. September last year, it was at the Merthyr Tydfil Transport Festival. It is owned by Stephen Doe. We had a conversation about the bus. It came to light we went to the same school, Alaw Primary, only at different times. He attended 1964-68, I attended 1974-78. He allowed me to sit in the cab. This is something I had wanted to do since I was around three years old. The cab itself has never been restored. I was looking at various things those drivers had operated from all those years ago. A small world. Half forgotten memories came flooding back.