The Scottish bus industry is in crisis. Costs soar and passenger numbers decline. Services are cut, and buses become an even less attractive alternative to the car. Meanwhile, disorder has become ingrained in a minority of young people travelling for free on their National Entitlement Cards, and the lonely figure of the driver, isolated in his or her cab, is expected to deal with that, too.

Add the intricacies of fare collection, trying to run to time on congested roads, dealing with members of the public, who can present a whole variety of challenges, low pay, and shift work, and it explains why it’s difficult to recruit and keep drivers.

Between 1969 and 1972, I worked over my university holidays and weekends on Western SMT buses, from Mearns and Thornliebank garages, conducting for three years and driving for one. In Holiday’s Busman, I tell, warts and all, what life on the platform and in the cab was really like, from a busman’s perspective.

The hours were long and the job sometimes dangerous. Driving was physical, before today’s automatic gearboxes and power steering, while all fares were in cash, strictly accounted for through a heavy ticket machine and cash bag.

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