Bus in Moscow

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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In 1967 I was a student who, through a friend of mine, took part in a trip behind what was then "the Iron Curtain". My friend's wife was a student at Manchester, studying Russian, & wanted to travel to Russia. She had no money & worked out that the cheapest way to do it was to organise a student trip going there and this could be done by us all buying places, which included the purchase of a double-decker bus, which would be our mode of transport. 2 engineering students at Manchester, who were to be the drivers of the bus, were dispatched to buy a bus, which they did from a specialist scrap yard. They chose what was known as a "country bus" as it was a bit lower than normal double-deckers, having a sunken walk-way & long bench seats on the top deck. Our route was plotted by the AA to avoid low bridges [they only got it wrong once - which took a chunk out of the top near-side corner of the bus!] & was made easier by the slightly lower than normal double-decker. We travelled for 6 weeks, visiting Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Hungary & East Germany en route. We stayed in hostels & camp sites, often escorted by a "guide" whose job it was to keep us under control. This was the case in the Soviet Union, where we were for 3 weeks of the trip. It was a bit like Summer Holiday only more dishevelled & argumentative. One of the high spots, of course, was Red Square, where we parked in front of St Basil's & sang folk-songs. An Englishman approached and was very friendly & curious about the bus, which he'd heard about from Russian friends [we were a hot news item for a few days] and was gobsmacked to find that it was the very bus on which he'd been a conductor for many years, on a route between Liverpool & North Wales. I forget why he was in Moscow, because I was so taken with the coincidence. Jenny
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Date submitted:Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:10:37 +0000Coincidence ID:3637