Constable Around the Village (16 page)

If the soft-glove treatment worked on this occasion, I would be pleased, but I wondered how long it would be before we had the Greengrass Taxi Line. A shudder ran down my spine.

For the next few months I had little contact with
Merryweather
Coaches and, so far as I know, Arnold never
experienced
a visitation by the Traffic Commissioners. I felt it unwise to check too closely upon his goods-carrying activities because he did provide a service to isolated rural communities. For Arnold, therefore, business began to boom. Contrary to the national trend, his bus service gathered more and more passengers and he felt obliged to employ a conductress to ease his burden.

He had found that his precious time was being consumed at every stop; he spent many useful minutes issuing tickets or delivering change and reckoned that if he paid for the services of a conductress much time and effort would be saved. Furthermore, his passengers would receive a swifter service. He placed an advert in every post-office window of the district and some eight or nine ladies made rapid
application
for the post. This was long before the days of the Sex Discrimination Act and it is possible that Arnold envisaged a delightful creature of exceptional beauty parading the length of his coach, but in this sense the sun did not shine on Arnold.

None of the seven hopefuls could even be described as remotely attractive, although five could count money and one knew how to change a wheel. After interviewing each woman, Arnold settled for Miss Hannah Pybus, whose name led to many nicknames aboard the coach. Some of the children called her Fly-Bus or Hannah Wide-Bus, the latter
being due to the somewhat extensive measurement of her hips.

Hannah was a spinster of the parish of Thackerston and was in her fifties. She had lived with her retired father for years, never working at a normal job but spending her time looking after the old man. He had died several months ago and she now needed an outlet. The opportunity of a job which took her free of charge into conurbations like Ashfordly and Elsinby, and into that far-off place of York, was a godsend. A whole new world opened for Hannah Pybus.

It was sad that Hannah was not in the least attractive in her appearance. From a distance, there could be considerable doubt as to whether she was male or female, for she was almost six feet tall, with a frame like a battleship and hips like the proverbial rear-end of an African bull elephant. Stout, trunk-like legs supported her massive frame and she walked with a strange, sailor-like motion, as if throwing her body forward in an attempt to keep it mobile. Her shapeless, outdated clothes concealed any semblance of breasts or waistline while her face was heavy about the jowls with sandy-coloured tufts of hair sprouting from all manner of odd places. She had a freckled face with pale brown eyes and a mop of sandy-coloured hair on top, the strands held in place with tortoiseshell slides with a thick red ribbon at the back.

Being a lady of leisure, therefore, she embarked on her new job with characteristic gusto, cycling daily from her cottage at Thackerston to Arnold’s depot at Ashfordly, some six or seven miles. Her cycle had a basket on the front and a wire skirt-guard at each side of the rear wheel. Somehow she forced the pedals of her gallant machine to carry her up the long incline to Aidensfield Bank Top before gathering speed for the remaining four-mile run into Ashfordly.

After Arnold had explained the intricacies of his ticket machine and accounting system, he took off for York with Hannah aboard. She was clad in a shapeless gown coloured purple and cream to match his coaching colours and looked like a statue awaiting its unveiling ceremony. In her enthusiasm as the first passenger entered, she pounced on
him and demanded his destination. He paid all the way to York, even though he only wanted to go to Elsinby.

Within a week, she was totally in charge. Arnold told me he’d never seen anything like it. Hardly had the last
passenger
boarded at any given stop, than Hannah rang the bell to send him along his route. There were no delays now. She proceeded to allocate seats to the passengers, leaving them no choice in the matter, and demanded their fares while making sure they behaved. Children quaked when she appeared, old men didn’t dare smoke their foul pipes and the village gossips watched their language as Hannah hovered around, eagle-eyed and always anxious to please her boss.

There is little doubt that Arnold and his finances benefited from her presence. He was able to concentrate upon his driving and maintenance, while Hannah cared for the interiors of the two buses. She polished and washed, swept and tidied, and she seldom made an error with the cash. The general behaviour of passengers, especially children and drunks, improved tremendously and the net result was that more people used Merryweather Coaches. They seemed happy to obey Hannah when on board. Arnold was in his sixth heaven and, whenever I saw him in the Brewers Arms, he talked incessantly of bus-conductresses, buses and bus routes. For him, Hannah provided a new dimension in his life, but for the regulars in the pub they grew just as sick of Hannah as they did with every other facet of bus-lore. Even so, they all agreed that it was nice to see Arnold so happy.

There was even talk of a romance between the unlikely pair, although it was universally agreed that the man who took Hannah in all her prime showed gallantry of the highest order or foolishness of the most awful kind.
Nothing
developed along those lines while I was at Aidensfield, although I did note Arnold’s starry eyes as he talked about Hannah’s role in his coaching enterprise. Maybe there was something there? Maybe he did drive her home after the last trip, with her cycle in the rear and his hands on the wheel?

It is quite true to say that the entire community was delighted at the success of Arnold’s venture. The little bus
company with its huge conductress did a roaring trade and Hannah did allow some parcels to be carried. She had studied the
Conduct
of
Drivers
,
Conductors
and
Passengers
Regulations
1936
and
1946
,
consequently she knew which goods were permitted and which had never to be brought aboard. She knew that she must never talk to the driver when driving, unless for safety reasons, and she appreciated that it was her duty to enforce the regulations relating to the conduct of passengers, and to see that the route, fare and destination notices were properly displayed.

Hannah enforced the rules most carefully. She enforced those which said passengers had not to be disorderly, that they had to enter and alight in the correct manner and not through skylights or windows, that they had not to distract the driver’s attention, nor distribute notices or advertising matter aboard the bus. She had learned that they must not play noisy instruments or throw bottles, coins and litter about the place, nor allow any banners, flags or streamers to overhang the road outside. She made sure they did not soil the vehicle or be offensive, either in behaviour or clothing. Loaded firearms had not to be taken on board, nor had any other offensive article and no one could bring an animal aboard without the consent of an authorised person. Hannah reckoned she was authorised to refuse the pigs, lambs, hens and goats although she did tolerate such creatures if the accompanying adult would clean up the mess and keep the creature under control.

Hannah knew that she had wide powers to enforce the observance of these rules, and that a constable was also given like powers. If any passenger contravened the
regulations
, he had to give his name and address on demand to the driver or conductor, or to a constable, and such a person could be removed from the bus by either the driver or the conductor, or by a constable if requested by those officials.

It was difficult to envisage an occasion when I would be called to act officially, for I knew Hannah would quell any riot by the merest glance of those pale eyes, but one
Wednesday
afternoon I found myself involved in what appeared to be an infringement of the
Conduct
of
Drivers
,
Conductors
and
Passengers
Regulations.

I was in my office at home, writing reports, when Arnold’s bus halted outside and a very distraught Hannah hurried down the path. I opened the door to admit her, for she was clearly distressed. I gathered from her first words that a passenger had infringed the rules in a rather peculiar way.

“Calm down, Hannah!” I said. “Take a deep breath and then tell me about it.”

She took a huge breath, enough to drain a hot-air balloon, and her colossal bosom swelled behind my counter and threatened to dislodge the typewriter. But the trick worked, for her face lost its initial look of horror and disgust, and she sighed.

“By jove, Mr Rhea, it was a nasty shock, I can tell you.”

“Come in and sit down.” I lifted the flap on the office counter and invited her in for a seat. She settled down and refused a cup of tea; Arnold was waiting outside in the bus and would take her home. She’d give him a cup in her house and would have hers then. He wouldn’t come in, she said, as he found it all too embarrassing.

“So what happened on that bus?” I asked.

She swallowed hard and I could see she was acutely embarrassed.

“It was a man,” she said. “He… er…. well, he broke the rules about the conduct of passengers…. he was offensive,” she added quickly.

“Dirty clothing? Been cleaning out his pigs, had he?”

“No,” she said, gritting her teeth. “It was worse than that, Mr Rhea, much, much worse.”

“Go on, I must know what he did if I am to take action.”

She swallowed again.

I waited.

“He…. look, Mr Rhea, I’m not very good at explaining things….”

“I’m good at listening,” I assured her. “Take your time.”

She paused, clearly trying to select the right words to describe her ordeal, and all the time my curiosity was increasing. What on earth had happened aboard
Merryweather
Coaches to create such an effect upon the
redoubtable
Hannah Pybus?

“He was indecent.” She managed to spit out the word.

“Indecent?” I asked. “How? Did he swear at you?”

She shook that pale gingery head.

“No, it was worse than that. I’m not fussy about a
swear-word
or two, Mr Rhea. This was worse than any
swear-word
.”

“Go on.” I was getting interested now. Had he taken a grab at her? Some passengers weren’t slow in smacking the shapely bottoms of conductresses, but I couldn’t imagine anyone being so fuddled as to smack Hannah’s spacious rump regions. Maybe a drunken passenger had done that, or seized her by some other part of her towering frame? The thought was astonishing.

“He exposed himself at me.” She lowered her head and blushed furiously as the words emerged.

“Indecent exposure?” I asked. “On a bus?”

“Yes,” she said, relaxing now she had clarified the
situation
.

Immediately, my Training School knowledge began to click within the farmost regions of my mind. Indecent exposure was a public nuisance if it was done
publicly.
If Hannah alone had seen the object in question, it might not be an indictable common law offence. There being no public viewing. The Vagrancy Act, 1824, section 4, offered a possible solution because it created a summary offence for a man to wilfully, openly, lewdly and obscenely expose the person with intent to insult a female. Nothing said what “the person” meant here, but most of us had a good idea. If the fellow intended to insult Hannah, that provision might fit the circumstances. The Town Police Clauses Act 1847 also created an offence of indecent exposure if it occurred in any street to the annoyance of residents or passengers. Arnold’s bus wasn’t a street, so I had to rule out the latter offence. Because the Common Law offence must be proved to be a
public
display I was left with the Vagrancy Act and its quaint Victorian phraseology.

On a bus? I knew there were no buses when the Vagrancy
Act came into force, but happily that old law, still in force, left the situation sufficiently open to cater for such crimes. Besides, the
Conduct
of
Drivers,
Conductors
and
Passengers
Regulations
of
1936
and
1946
would cope with the fellow, if all else failed. I felt I could proceed with the matter.

“An indecent exposure on a bus, Hannah. Would you say you were insulted?” I had to ask this in order to prove the case, should it ever reach court. It was part of the Victorian wording of the statute.

“Insulted! I was mortified!” she said, hurt at my
question
.

“I have to ask, as it’s an essential ingredient of the offence. The lady must be insulted if I am to take action.”

“I was grossly insulted!” she stressed.

With her use of words like this, I was reminded of the police recruit who defined Gross Indecency as “Indecency between a large number of persons, 144, I think”.

“Who was the man?” I asked next.

“I don’t know his name, but he got on at York. He was all right until I went for his fare. He got off at that lane end, just before you get into Elsinby from York.”

“You’d know him again?”

She nodded. “Oh yes, I’d know him again!”

“Did you tell anyone at the time?”

“No, I didn’t want to upset the passengers. I told Arnold when we got to the terminus and he said I’d better mention it to you.”

“Certainly. Well, it looks as if he lives on my beat. What’s he like?”

She described a man about fifty years old, with grey hair and an unshaven appearance. He was a small man, she said, wearing a dirty raincoat and heavy black boots. All flashers wore dirty raincoats, I thought. This one fitted the traditional pattern.

Having described him quite well, I had to ask her precisely what he had done. It was important from the prosecution point of view.