The Last Bus to Ely, by Bethan Morgan-Rees

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

This story is set in Cardiff during the Second World War, when women worked as bus conductors.

Mrs Bowen swung up onto the platform of the number twelve as it was already pulling away, one hand on the pole, the other on her ticket machine, and her laugh carried the length of the lower deck. ‘Hold tight, my lovelies! Next stop, Paradise, or Canton, whichever comes first.’

In the blackout the bus was a dim box of blue light, and she moved through it by memory, punching tickets without looking, calling every passenger by name or by nickname. The old men were ‘sweetheart’. The schoolboys were ‘trouble’. The tired women coming off shift at the munitions works were ‘my angels’, and she never took their fares in a hurry.

Near the docks a soldier climbed on, swaying, and dropped onto the long seat with his boots on the cushions. He told her he would pay when Hitler did.

Mrs Bowen looked at him for a moment. Then she sat down beside him, so close that he had to shift up, and began to tell the whole bus about her own boy in the Navy, who had once tried exactly the same trick on a tram in Swansea and had been put off in his socks.

The soldier’s ears went red. He found his pennies.

‘There’s a good lad,’ she said, rattling the coins into her bag. ‘Boots off the seats, and I’ll forget I ever saw you.’

What impressions does the writer create of Mrs Bowen?

You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.