The Routemaster: London's symbol of liberty
Sunday, May 13, 2007 
I was asked last week why a Routemaster bus is included in the Taking Liberties masthead. My family moved to Scotland when I was ten but before that I grew up in Maidenhead, Berkshire, and from time to time I would spend weekends and holidays in London with my aunt. I must have been five or six when these visits began and everywhere we went we travelled by bus. (I don't recall ever going on the Tube at that time.) My love of London - and the Routemaster - dates back to those exciting, liberating days.
Years later, when I moved to London, I travelled to work on the No 6, never tiring of the freedom to jump on and off that unique open platform without waiting for permission from driver or conductor. Like millions of people, I cannot begin to count the number of times I ran to catch the bus as it pulled away, leaping on to the platform and grabbing the pole to stop myself falling off. Elation tinged with relief!
A favourite memory is hanging off the platform one day as the bus sped off down Whitehall while a friend on a bike pedalled furiously, inches from the tailgate. Today, health & safety would frown on such behaviour - but in 50 years how many people were killed or seriously hurt jumping on or off a Routemaster bus?
By coincidence, another guest at the ICA on Friday night was Travis Elborough (left), author of The Bus We Loved: London's affair with the Routemaster (Granta, 2005). If anyone doubts the liberating qualities of this special vehicle I urge you to read the book. Or read THIS interview in which he says: "That bell, with its school orchestra triangle 'ding-ding', such a comic, comforting sound, will be hard to forget ... And lastly, of course, the open platform at the rear for that liberty to hop on and off, in a way that seemed somehow to acknowledge all the spontaneity of life in the capital."
Needless to say it was an interfering politician, Ken Livingstone, who abolished the Routemaster and replaced it with the notorious 'bendy bus' that Travis correctly describes as having "all the aesthetics of a Hoover attachment". Thanks to Ken we have lost a little bit of freedom. It's not much but all these things add up. Without the Routemaster our lives are a little less spontaneous and a little less fun.
Reader Comments (3)
I entirely agree with that. Livingstone had said he would not get rid of it prior to his election.
A little less spontaneous, a little less fun... and a whole lot uglier. Oh, how meddling power-crazed We Know Best zealots such as Livingstone love trampling regional identities, so as to promote their sick little visions of homogenised conformist modernity.
Unlike their bland EU-approved replacements, now to be seen coiling around the city like corporate serpents, the Routey was designed for exactly the job it did. It was built by AEC of Southall as a bus for London's streets. Easy on, easy off. Minimal time spent at bus-stops, more time moving. Which helped keep the traffic flowing.
And the looks of the thing... entirely complementary to the city's architecture and with more than a whiff of Gilbert-Scott about it, the Routey stood for a distinctive London aesthetic. And the nasally-afflicted one couldn't be doing with that.
I grew up in London and caught a bus every day to school. I had to run and jump on many a time. If I was too late or the bus was too fast the conductor would stand on the platform wagging a negative "no" finger jesture at me and would say "not this time son".That was the only health and safety needed. It was spur of the moment. It was his bus and he was in charge. I loved those buses. We now live in a cotton wool society.