Winchester Bus Driver celebrates 50 years of serving the community

In 1972, the UK’s last trolleybus system ended in Bradford; Edward Heath was Prime Minister, Rose Heilbron became the first female judge to sit at the Old Bailey and Ford announced its new Granada model.

Also in the same year, Nick Knight embarked on a career with local Winchester bus operator, Hants & Dorset. 

Nick first started working at the company’s city depot, in Broadway on 1st May 1972. At the time, Hants & Dorset predominantly ran the country services, when King Alfred buses were still actively running the local city bus routes.

Very few people these days manage to make almost their whole career in one industry, let alone one place, but Nick is one of them and his is a wonderful tale to tell.

“I like driving buses”, he says. “That’s the core of it”, but Nick has used his interest and enjoyment to do so much more with his career than simply the driving. 

For Nick has dedicated his life to serving others. He has been an officer of what used to be the National Union of Railwaymen and is now of course the RMT. Nick took it much further, using his abilities to help his fellow workers and still today sits as a lay member on Employment Tribunals, often taking on cases that last many days in Court. 

Throughout his career Nick has worked under three company names – Hants & Dorset, Hampshire Bus and, since 1987, Stagecoach.

In the 5 decades that followed, Nick has seen many changes, including, driver only operated buses (conductors were removed in the early 1980s), low floor easy access buses, mobile ticketing and contactless payments.

Edward Hodgson, Managing Director at Stagecoach South said of Nick " It’s so very rare that people serve 50 years for a single company. 

We’re extremely grateful to Nick’s commitment to the company over the past 50 years, which has been exceptional. Without doubt, his continued hard work and loyalty to the business has contributed towards our success.

We are truly honoured to have retained him on a part time basis within our local driving team serving the Winchester city and Hampshire communities.
He’s such a people person with an incredible life story and personality”.

Winchester Bus Driver, Nick Knight.