FRANCIS Benwell is thought to have created a record during his long career as an Oxford bus driver.
He drove on the No 3 service between Rose Hill and Kingston Road for 26 years – believed to the longest spell any driver spent on one route.
When Mr Benwell, known to everyone as Ben, started work for City of Oxford Motor Services – now Oxford Bus Company – in 1929, there were only four main city services.
The No 1 ran from the Coronation lamp in Hockmore Street, Cowley, to Oxford railway station; the No 2 from Five Mile Drive to Green Road or the Wingfield Hospital; the No 3 from Iffley Turn to St Margaret’s Road; and the No 4 from Weirs Lane to Wolvercote Turn.
In addition, a single-decker provided a service from Magdalen Road to the foot of Cumnor Hill.
After leaving school, Mr Benwell became a gardener at three shillings a week. Seven years in the Army gave him a taste for company and after he was demobbed, he found he couldn’t return to his old occupation, so he decided to go ‘on the buses’.
After a spell as a conductor, he qualified as a driver and drove for a while on the No 2 route.
One morning in 1940, as he was emerging from a café at Green Road, where he and his conductor had had their elevenses, a passenger told him: “I shall report you for being late.”
It was apparently the third driver he had reported that week – and it was only Thursday!
Mr Benwell later recalled: “I thought to myself it’s time you asked for a transfer – and that’s what I did.”
The company agreed to put him on the No 3 – and he stayed there until he retired in 1966.
He made many friends on the route – and they were sad to see him go when he finally left the cab for the last time.
One of his passengers, Dick Watts, of Beech Road, Wheatley, tells me: “He was a driver much loved by all at Rose Hill, a really nice guy.”
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