PETER KILDUFF had an inauspicious start to his career as an Oxford bus driver when he broke his ankle stumbling as he got out of his vehicle on the first day.

He put the mishap behind him and went on to become a stalwart of what is now Oxford Bus Company, becoming the only person to win bus driver of the year in successive years.

He held a variety of positions – driver, inspector and ticket machine controller – and was responsible for training more than 1,000 Oxford bus drivers during his career.

A special tribute was made for his funeral, with an Oxford Bus Company Mercedes Citaro bus, bearing the words “Farewell Pete” on its electronic display, followed the hearse carrying Mr Kilduff’s coffin to Oxford Crematorium.

A vintage bus from the Oxford Bus Museum also followed, along with one of the buses Mr Kilduff used to instruct his trainees.

Mr Kilduff joined the then City of Oxford Motor Services in 1969 as a trainee driver, aged 24, suffering his broken ankle on his first day.

It was in 1975 and 76 and that he won Bus Driver of the Year, while in 2008 he received a special award for 36 consecutive years of safe driving. That is another miletone noone at the Oxford Bus Company has matched.

He retired last October because of ill health. Mr Kilduff, who died aged 64, leaves a widow, Carol, and two sons, Jason and Barry.

He was educated at Edmund Campion School, in Oxford and his first job was as a fireman with British Railways during the last days of steam locomotives in the 1960s.

Louisa Weeks, operations director at the Oxford Bus Company, said: “The funeral service was an uplifting celebration of Pete’s life.

“It was a fitting send-off for a remarkable man.”