Night shift at Kingsway, by Harry Nancarrow

An original contemporary interview.

Gloria Oyelowo starts work at the Kingsway bus depot at eleven at night, when the last buses roll in from the city centre, and finishes at seven in the morning, just as the first ones pull out. In between, she and three colleagues clean sixty double-deckers.

‘People imagine it’s just sweeping,’ she tells me as she pulls on a pair of yellow gloves. ‘It isn’t. We wipe every handrail and every bell button with disinfectant, because those are the things everybody touches. Then we check under the seats. You would not believe what we find down there.’ The list includes umbrellas by the hundred, a set of false teeth, a bag of goldfish, still alive, and once a wedding ring, which she handed to the office and which was collected by a very relieved bridegroom two days later.

Gloria has done the job for nine years. She tried day work once, in the depot canteen, but asked to move back after a month. ‘I like the night,’ she says. ‘It is quiet. The whole depot belongs to us. I put my radio on the dashboard and I work at my own pace.’

Her only complaint is chewing gum. It takes her longer to scrape gum off one seat than to clean the rest of the bus.

(a) What hours does Gloria Oyelowo work? (b) Why does she wipe the handrails and bell buttons with disinfectant? (c) Why did Gloria ask to move back to working at night?