it's big and it's red

someone recently asked me to write about something that made me happy. so i did.

Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster.
Happiness is a much rarer treat than it used to be, given that ‘they’ have all but phased out London’s transport icon. Happiness can only be found in one or two parts of town these days, where once it spun round every corner.
I grew up in the small-minded suburbs, surrounded by shoe box houses and people who didn’t like me because I wasn’t like them.
The routemaster was my getaway vehicle.
It whisked me off to better things. To record shops that sold indie stuff you couldn’t get in Woolworths or Our Price. To charity shops where I could buy the kind of clothes the other kids at school would beat me up for wearing. It took me to the Tube – another exit from my miserable schoolday existence.
Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster, in the seat at the back on left. The one with more leg room and a view down the stairs. Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster looking out over the city that I used to think belonged to me.
The big red bus makes me remember more innocent times. And lazy days, when, if I timed it right and the traffic lights were in my favour I could hop off between stops virtually outside my front door. Lazy days before health and safety turned us all into the worried well, the terrified, the danger strangers.
It reminds me of the days when two people would work on buses, when there were jobs a plenty, and enough of everything to go round. The conductor would actually talk to you not just stare you out from behind glass.
It reminds me of the days of waking up to the gentle hum of milk floats and the sound of a paper boy putting the Daily Mirror through the letterbox.
The routemaster reminds me of times I was too young ever to experience. Of wars won, hard times endured but always, always, the hopefulness of travelling. To a in better place. Anywhere but here.
Happiness is sitting on the top deck of a routemaster.