MANNERS & MORALS: Big Red from Charing X

MANNERS & MORALS

Manhattan dockworkers, who have seen nearly everything in their day, gaped last week as the Cunard liner Parthia began unloading her cargo. Out of the hold swung three new red double-decker London motorbuses; their sides were plastered with ads for English cigarettes, cars and marmalade: their Dunlop “tyres” were heavy-treaded. And No. 11, the leader of the big reds, still bore her route markings: “BUCKINGHAM PALACE RD. WESTMINSTER ABBEY, CHARING X (for Charing Cross), STRAND, ST. PAUL’S, LIVERPOOL STREET.”

The landing was the first act of a bright stunt to promote U.S. travel to Britain. In the next 17 weeks, the buses and a British promotion entourage will swing through 46 major U.S. cities from coast to coast. For the cockney drivers, the first big test was to shake off a lifetime of keeping left in London’s traffic; grimly they swung into right-hand U.S. traffic behind a police escort as they worked from the river over toward the welcoming ceremonies in midtown Manhattan.

The drivers—their accent, their tea-making equipment and their reactions to the U.S.—provided the best newspaper copy. Said one, after cruising down Madison Avenue: “It’s the pace you live that worries me more than the traffic. You’ve got no provision for the pedestrian.”

The Londoners’ biggest shock was the discovery that most New York drivers operate one-man buses, take tickets, give transfers and dole out change. Said London with some justice: “I cahn’t see ‘ow ‘e can attend to ‘is proper job if ‘e ‘as to do sums in ‘is ‘ead.”