It was lucky that the bus was behind schedule – mainly because the driver had stepped out to take his own photograph for social media (#endofanera) – otherwise the young lad in the hoodie might have missed it. ‘Is this the last bus?’ he asked as he fumbled for change. ‘It’s the last bus from Mousehole Harbour, ever,’ the driver replied, before waving him on without paying.

People rarely get as nostalgic about buses as they do about trains. Flanders and Swann wrote a song about the 1960s Beeching cuts. It pretty much consists of Michael Flanders reciting the names of closed rail stations to music – and it is an elegiac masterpiece. The only time I ever saw my father cry was when someone sang it at a village hall concert. The Flanders and Swann song about buses, on the other hand, is a jaunty satire on the monarch of the road and its misanthropic drivers.

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Last Saturday, however, was the last day of the bus service into Mousehole after more than 90 years – and the passengers were sentimental. Not just those whose idea of romance on Valentine’s Day was to make the........

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