Rough Riding

Last week more than 2,300 London bus drivers struck without warning, stayed out for seven days. Until the strikers went back to work, the Army took over. Soldiers from Africa and the Middle East drove the big double-deck busses, supplemented by Army trucks. The result: hilarious confusion on the 16 routes affected.

Jolting take-offs and stops scrambled Britons with Britons, Britons with Americans. Passengers clung each to each, forgot the chill reserve common to Anglo-Saxon bus riders the world over.

Passengers who knew the route sat up front to tell the soldier-drivers where to go. Even so, many a bus went wrong-way through one-way streets, opened new routes on virgin streets, got thoroughly lost. In East London an errant double-decker tried to squeeze under a low bridge, sliced its top off (nobody was riding on top). The driver, long weary of inaction, surveyed the wreckage with a blissful smile.

On one truck a soldier-hackney handed passengers a five-foot piece of two-by-four. Said he: "Here's the bell--bash on the back of the driver's compartment when you want to get off." They did. On another, the driver yelled an invitation to get aboard: "Come on, come on."

No fares were collected. But some passengers insisted on paying. In one day two soldiers--driver and conductor--collected $48. They spent $8 getting drunk, saved $8 for another day, put the rest in war savings. Other soldiers used their take to buy drinks for the strikers.

A protest against schedules requiring alternate twelve-and four-hour days caused the strike. But the peremptory strike and the Government's peremptory action was a gaudy symptom of a serious condition. Labor unrest was growing in Britain, workers in many regions and industries were in revolt against their own leaders. And the Government was getting tough. Last week it put into effect a regulation providing imprisonment up to five years, fines of $2,000 for persons convicted of fomenting strikes.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.