The Wrong Guy

A Memory of Gawber.

There at the time when Cawthorne was a tour operator and whether it was coincidence or not the tour operator was called Harry Cawthorne coach tours. I do believe that they were an established firm; it could well be that the village was named after the Cawthorne family. My mother who was called Ivy Mitchell was to organise a trip to Blackpool to see the Blackpool illuminations. The thing about it was that we lived in Royston in South Yorkshire, and we were to travel to Cawthorne to start our journey. When we got there some forty-seven of us found that the coach that we were to travel in was an old Guy's petrol engine coach, and even back in 1952 it was considered as a museum piece. Being an inquisitive young lad, I asked Harry why the Guy coach was being used and not one of the modern buses of which he had in the bus depot: apparently those coaches were in need of repair and that it was a case of make or break for his company, his drivers were laid off and he was trying to get this trip up to try and keep the company afloat. Anyway off we went on our journey to Blackpool where we all had a little sing-song, like 'Ten green bottles' and any other song we could think of. There were no toilets on board and the young ones would pee in a potty or even in a paper cup, and out of the window it went. I cannot be exact to where we were or how far we were from Blackpool but what I do remember was that as we were approaching the top of a hill the old Guy's engine came to an halt and no matter how Harry tried to start her up, she was playing possum. Harry got out of the coach and went to the brow of the hill and looked down the road. There was a garage at almost three quarter's of the way down. It was something of a steep road and about half a mile long. Harry came back to the coach and inquired if we'd all be willing to get out of the bus and give it a push to the top of the hill; it was only 100 yards and the incline wasn't too great, so leaving the old people on board there were ten of us who were strong enough to push it just enough over the brow of the hill where Harry put on his hand brake and called us back onto the bus. Having no power to the engine, Harry slowly released the brake and then the coach began to coast down the hill. How he managed to keep that bus from doing ninety miles an hour I'll never know. The only thing I know was that he only had one chance to get it right and to pull up into the garage without knocking down the pump attendant and the pumps. Harry was able to have words with the owner where he asked if he would loan him a spanner or two. He said that he was not in the business for lending out tools and said that if he wanted to pay for work done that would be fine. Up went the bonnet of the coach and within a total of ten seconds the mechanic spotted the trouble straight away! It was one of the battery leads that had jumped off the battery. The mechanic sort of smiled as he said there was no charge for fixing the problem. One woman asked if she could use the toilet, it was locked up and the key was within the bungalow and simply seeing how desperate she was he told her it was ok for her to use the toilet in the bungalow. Most of the young boys used the back of the bus whilst thirty used the bungalow, everyone queued up for twenty minures before their turn. Then off we went to Blackpool and we all went our different ways until it was time to get back home to Royston. On the way back as a good gesture we all put money in a hat for Harry. I wonder can anybody tell me if the family business of Cawthorne coaches still exists?