School buses
If you lived in Yarralumla or Deakin, or further out, you had to catch the bus to and from school. In those days parents didn't drive you to school - we didn't have a car until 1962, and even then it was a 1928 Buick which I was ashamed to be seen in, but that is another story!
Catching the bus to school was an excruciatingly slow experience, picking up people along the way, trying to save a seat for your friend, chatting excitedly with everyone - after all, you hadn't seen them for a whole 15 hours!
But the trip home seemed even more exciting. We in Yarralumla had a choice of three buses, two which went just to Yarralumla, and one which went on to Mount Stromlo, Weston Creek and the Cotter. In theory we were meant to catch the Yarralumla buses, with the Cotter bus taking the overflow of students from Yarralumla. But by the time we reached Second or Third Form, we had discovered that the people on the Cotter bus were much more interesting - after all, they lived a life outside of surburbia and seemed to have more freedom than us.
My brother, however, favoured one of the other buses which went past the Girls Grammar School, as the girls from Grammar were just crazy for the Telopea boys!
And who will ever forget Tommy Rodden, bus driver extraordinaire, who would yell "Stone the crows! Get off my bus!" whenever the boys in the back seat would misbehave, singing bawdy renditions of "My Bonny Lies over the Ocean", or cuffing one other?
Janice Nelson