Fat Ladies’ day

What, though, of the Two Fat Ladies? They sing at 6.20pm tomorrow when, for the last time, the Arriva service 88 terminates at South Side, near Butterknowle, in west Durham.

Its swansong is just one of many bus service cuts effective from this weekend, one of many warnings to use it or lose it that went hopelessly unheeded. It’s another nibbling – another gnawing – at the network.

We’ve enthused before about the Fat Ladies route, a rural transport of delight that wends three times a day between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle through places such as High Wham and Low Lands, like Copley Bent and Butterknowle Slack (between which there’s presumably no connection).

An earlier column had even prompted a visit by Frank Campbell, a Church of Scotland minister (and Northern League assistant referee) with a burning for buses. “The bus gobbled up the country miles with the grace and style of a fairground bucking bronco,” he wrote in the parish magazine.

The day’s last through bus – there are one or two part-journeys, as to South Side – leaves Bishop at 1.15pm.

Though none other might be at the funeral, none other stir for the wake, it was time to bid Arriva derci.

FIVE ladies join the bus at Bishop Auckland. None, it should at once be made clear, is fat. All proffer senior citizens’ bus passes.

Though a notice indicates that the bus can hold 26 seated passengers and 17 standees – like grandees, presumably, only not as posh – none other joins the 58-minute ramble to Barnard Castle.

Nor will the driver collect a penny piece in fares. If money talks, the tale’s told.

Joan McKie, 78, will be worst hit.

She lives in Hamsterley, which will now have no service at all save for something called a Link Bus, which can be summoned by telephone.

“I know we have to be grateful for small mercies, but it’s a converted ambulance,” she says, “terribly rickety and with narrow seats. The drivers are lovely, but you wouldn’t want to go far in one of those.

“It’s absolutely disgusting what’s happening. It’s a lovely village, but there’s no shop, no doctor and now no regular bus – we’re being cut off.

We’d be happier even with two a week or paying half fare for our bus passes if it meant keeping something going.

“I think there are more people using the 88 than ever, especially in summer when it can be packed. I absolutely love Bishop Auckland and now I won’t be able to get there any more. I’m on my own, sometimes the people on the bus are the only company I’ve got.

“What’s the point in having a flaming bus pass if there are no flaming buses?”

We pass through Witton-le-Wear, where George Reynolds’ old mansion’s on the market, westwards to Hamsterley where a sign warns to beware of ducks, on to Woodland – Windy Ridge – where half the remaining passengers alight.

One’s a Scottish lady, declines to give her name, calls what’s happening a perfect disgrace, threatens to go home to Scotland and (she says) to civilisation.

“We all enjoy the 88, it’s lovely, but at least we have an alternative service in Woodland.”

She waves, reluctantly, as the Fat Ladies flyer heads for the spring-step fells, for kith and Kinninvie and ultimately for the bright lights of Barney.

If the unspoken message is “Will ye no’ come back again?” the answer is that it won’t, not ever.

SISTERS Dorothy and Anne Tindale are what might be termed social bus users, in it for the ride. They occupy the back seats.

“I felt quite guilty getting on the bus in Barnard Castle this morning,”

says Anne. “There was just another lady got on in Copley. It was a bit like a private taxi service, but we’ve had a really nice ride out.”

They live in Barney, claim descent from William Tindale – the man who first translated the Bible into English – roam far.

The furthest bus pass day-trip, they suppose, may have been to Robin Hood’s Bay. “It was quite a few changes, but we had a lovely day,”

says Dorothy.

The sights and smells are of spring, the fells all lambsy-divey. In a field near Butterknowle some men can be seen with a drilling rig. “Oil,”

say the sisters, simultaneously.

“You read it here first,” I tell them.

They regret the loss of the allthe- eights, are happy that the Barnard Castle to Richmond service – “a beautiful run” – has been reprieved.

“It would be better if we paid £12 for our bus passes, still nothing really, if it meant that they could keep some of the services,” says Dorothy.

“We don’t really need the bus, but there are still plenty who do.”

All suppose that other cuts will follow.

The last bus may not be the last after all.

AMONG other suffering services is the last bus, the 11 o’clock, from Darlington to Catterick Garrison via Scotch Corner – home, near enough – and Richmond.

Henceforth the last weekday departure will be at 9pm, seriously inconvenient if you’re a returning squaddie and not much better if a Monday dominoes player.

We fell into late-night commiseration this week, the chap from Barton whose Monday evening chess game is arbitrarily checkmated and the 5s and 3s players whose board meetings compulsorily are curtailed.

One’s much more mentally demanding than the other, of course, but the chess men probably have something on their minds, too.

Nor may it be the cruellest cut of all, the trio tremulously singing We’ll Meet Again perhaps a little melodramatic, but it’s a nuisance, wretched and regrettable, nonetheless.

I’ve enjoyed playing in the Darlington 5s and 3s League for 30 years.

Now, because we live nine miles out of town, it’s suddenly game over. The story is unlikely to break many hearts. Will the North-East really miss the bus?