After attending my first two years of primary school in the prefabs in the centre of Westerton village, I graduated to Primary 3 in the Bearsden Academy annexe. We lined up in the lane running beside the Co-op each morning waiting for the buses which would take us to Bearsden. Up Maxwell Avenue, along Canniesburn Road – the same route initially as that we took on Sunday mornings on our way to the Gospel Hall at Milngavie.
The normal commercial bus route through Westerton was numbered 13. Before I started in Primary 3 my mother repeatedly told me ‘Now, remember, it’s a 13 bus you want to get back home. Never get on a bus with any other number.’
It must have been my first or second day in P3. We piled out of Miss Johnston’s classroom, and ran out of the playground. I walked along the row of waiting buses. There was a 6, an 8, one with the number indicator stuck half way between 11 and 12, but there were no 13s. Backwards and forwards along the pavement I went anxiously, as my classmates carelessly climbed on board. ‘Of course they’re the right buses. Come on John!’ But they weren’t number 13s, and I was still standing on the pavement as they drove off, engulfing me in a cloud of diesel fumes.
I walked home. It wasn’t far – perhaps two or three miles. I went the back way, past the posh suburban houses with neat hedges and long gardens fragrant with late-summer flowers. Eventually, I walked down Maxwell Avenue and turned down our drive. My mother was watching out for me at the window, with her friend Letty Anderson standing anxiously behind her, Letty, the devotee of the Africa Inland Mission with the big, thick, round spectacles. My mother opened the front door. ‘There were no 13s,’ I sobbed, as I hugged her. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said.
The normal commercial bus route through Westerton was numbered 13. Before I started in Primary 3 my mother repeatedly told me ‘Now, remember, it’s a 13 bus you want to get back home. Never get on a bus with any other number.’
It must have been my first or second day in P3. We piled out of Miss Johnston’s classroom, and ran out of the playground. I walked along the row of waiting buses. There was a 6, an 8, one with the number indicator stuck half way between 11 and 12, but there were no 13s. Backwards and forwards along the pavement I went anxiously, as my classmates carelessly climbed on board. ‘Of course they’re the right buses. Come on John!’ But they weren’t number 13s, and I was still standing on the pavement as they drove off, engulfing me in a cloud of diesel fumes.
I walked home. It wasn’t far – perhaps two or three miles. I went the back way, past the posh suburban houses with neat hedges and long gardens fragrant with late-summer flowers. Eventually, I walked down Maxwell Avenue and turned down our drive. My mother was watching out for me at the window, with her friend Letty Anderson standing anxiously behind her, Letty, the devotee of the Africa Inland Mission with the big, thick, round spectacles. My mother opened the front door. ‘There were no 13s,’ I sobbed, as I hugged her. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she said.
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