New book is just the ticket to ride back into famous Staffordshire bus firm's past
He was a bus fanatic who gave up a promising career as a secondary school teacher to drive double-deckers.
Paul Roberts may be retired now but his passion for Harpers buses, with their distinctive green livery, lives on.
The company, then the biggest private bus operator in Staffordshire, put the village of Heath Hayes in Cannock on the national map as bus enthusiasts from around the UK visited its headquarters.
Now Mr Roberts, aged 64, has published a hardback history of Harpers featuring photographs that he took during his years with the firm.
He was teaching science and geography at Springfield Secondary Boys School in Wolverhampton in 1970 when he applied to become a part-time bus conductor with Harpers to supplement his meagre teaching salary. Following a 10-minute interview, he was told to report for duty the next day to conduct on the Bishops Wood route.
It was the start of something big. Three years later, he gave up his teaching job to go full-time. "Some people like railways, I like buses," he said. "My mother's uncle had a bus company in the 1940s, although I was too young at the time to take an interest, but maybe it was in the blood. That's how it felt, anyway.
"I left a good job but I loved buses so much, it wasn't a difficult decision.
"It was like On The Buses at times. I remember one chap, who was a bit the worse for wear, losing his false teeth on a late-night bus to Aldridge. My favourite buses were the ex-London workhorses that plodded along. I loved being out on the road and that meant not only taking people to work and school but on days out and holidays because the company also operated tours to the coast."
The former Dudley College student, who lived in Paget Road, Wolverhampton, and Ajax Close, Great Wyrley, stayed with Harpers until the company was taken over by Midland Red in 1974 and continued under the new operator until his wife's job took them to Leicester in 1986.
The book focuses on the different types of buses operated and the routes covered, with a large section devoted to the farewell trip and the early years under Midland Red, forerunner to Arriva.
Mr Roberts said: "The book is not a complete history, it's my memories, all good ones."
