Ashes to ashes, bus to dust

For 40 years, come snow, ice or smog, Joe Harvey made sure the buses ran on time.Now the 96-year-old Black Country pensioner has decided to leave the ultimate legacy to the service he loved.

Joe has told his nearest and dearest that when he dies his cremated ashes are to be added to one of the road-grit bins on his old route.

“I just think it’s a noble thing to do,” the former bus driver said today. “I can see the headlines: ‘Busman Joe kept his fleet going right to the end - and after’.

“There was this steep section on the Outer Circle Number 11 route at Marsh Hill. During the hard winters, the buses would often get stuck.

“Half way up the hill was the grit box. It was a great asset and I kept an old spade there. I’ve shovelled loads of grit to get the buses moving again. It suddenly came to me - that’s where I want my ashes to go.”

Joe, of Tipton, was born in 1910. He left school at 14 and went straight to work in a Birmingham factory, working 12-hour shifts. With millions of others he lost his job in the 1930s Depression.

After 13 months out of work - “the worst time of my life” - he got a job as a £2-a-week conductor on the Birmingham Corporation buses. Over the next 40 years Joe was promoted to driver and inspector, retiring in 1972. He has been married to his wife, retired teacher Sylvia, for 55 years.

He began driving in the days when buses had solid-rubber tyres and the driver’s compartment was open.

“When it rained you had to pull up this tarpaulin sheet but you still got wet. The top rate for drivers was £3 10s (£3.50) a week.”

Joe served through the Second World War and has vivid memories of the Birmingham and Black Country air raids of the 1940s.

“There was this sliding window behind the driver. There was a raid one night and about five minutes from the garage, the conductress opened the window and said, ‘we’ll be all right, then’

“Just as she said it, Jerry dropped one. We felt the blast. The bus heeled over.”

But the hardest times, he said, were the icy winters, particularly the great freeze of 1947.

“It was hard to keep the buses going, especially when there was smog as well” said Joe. “We used an awful lot of grit. I can see us now, shovelling it out of the bins. Marsh Hill was one of the places we’d always get stuck.

“I am in pretty good health now but when I go I’d like to put something back into the system.

” I would like to be remembered as the man who gave his all to keep the wheels turning. I mean, what else can you do with your ashes?”