RE: A quiet Saturday - 50 years ago
  Greg King

Hi Peter, I am one of those old fuddy duddies!! Yes, when I started, the only concession to summer was the removal of your jacket! Later came the tie and later still, shorts!! As a conductor you had to wear your cap at all times, as a driver, it could be taken off only in the tram. I always believed and still do that, we had greater respect when we wore our full uniform with caps, today, with a hodge podge of uniforms and flack jackets they wear, they could be anything! I also believe the respect for the police dropped when they went to those silly base ball caps.

When we to green with the MTA and I was at Hanna street training driver on the LRT, I asked the boss why I got all the Asian students (not that I minded, they were great to teach, I was just curious) and he told me it was because they trusted me because I was the only one that wore my full uniform including cap!

Cheers

Greg (Fuddy-Duddie club)

From:tramsdownunder@... [mailto:tramsdownunder@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Peter Bruce
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2019 10:52 AM
To:tramsdownunder@...
Subject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] A quiet Saturday - 50 years ago

An interesting point is that up until the introduction of numbers that could be pinned to the uniform you were required to carry your cap at all times, the cap of course had your number on it. I do realise that recollections like this are only of interest to a few old fuddy-duddies like me and apologies are tendered.

Regards to all,

Peter Bruce.

On Thu, 13 Jun 2019 at 07:08, Paul Nicholson pn1@... mailto:pn1@bigpond.com > wrote:

With reference to Greg's message about joining our beloved MMTB in 1973 as I did in 1974 I guess we can both claim to being part of it all at the end of the traditional era? I regard the introduction of the Zs and the hideous brown uniforms as the turning point.

I was "on the job" from September 1974 to March 1976 when I was "between [career] assignments" and enjoyed every minute of it.

Recently, I caught up with Doug Prosser (known to many on here) and he presented me with my "plate" that used to get inserted in the depot master's roster board each week. Handwritten with name and cap number. Doug hasn't been travelling too well in recent times after suffering an injury on his rural property.

Doug was an instructor during my time at Camberwell and taught me to drive trams. One memorable evening when hardly anyone was around we went from near the Alfred Hospital to Camberwell terminus using (only) the hand brake most of the way!

We are coming up to the 100th anniversary of the MMTB and I guess it will pass largely unnoticed except I do understand it will be commemorated in some way at the tram museum at Hawthorn.

Paul in Melbourne